Has anyone got an iPhone Air?

Hi Dave,

I have an iPhone Air and yes, the speaker is mono. Voiceover sounds just fine through it, but I have only had it about 48 hours.
I also have an iPhone 17 pro Max and those speakers are stereo. Trying to decide which phone I will go with, but the air is just so appealing so far. It's light, slim and apps like SeeingAI and Be My AI work well. I've tried AccessAI through the AIRA app, but not called an agent yet.

Hope this helps and happy to answer any questions.

Scott

I'm just thinking back to my iPhone 8, I think it was, and the mono speaker on that. I'm assuming it is better than that was, but I do recall, in loud environments, listening to an audio book was problematic.

To be honest though, I think the 17 is probably the way to go if you want a small light phone. The weight difference between the two is negligable, and though you don't get the more punchy processor or 12 gb ram, you get better speaker batter, speakers etc, and it's £200 cheaper.

There is a price for thinness and compromises. The iPhone 17 Pro is a little bigger and quite a bit heavier than the 17 standard.

The iPhone 17 is 12 grams heavier than the iPhone Air. I'm not sure I'd be able to tell the difference.

I'm also not arguing with you; I'm more arguing with myself. The Air is a status phone, compromised but beautiful. How long will the novelty of thinness last, and how long will the compromises remain? This is what I'm telling myself anyway.

I also don't need to upgrade... I want to, though. I'm looking for reasons.

My advice: tie down during this storm of tasty, hyper-palatable consumerism and buy a new phone when and if we need one. The iPhone 12 still does everything I could want to do on a phone, and I've got the 15 Pro, which is a super punchy phone. It's no less good than it was when I bought it two years ago.

My first iPhone was an iPhone 8. That thing had two speakers. They were great for what they were at the time. They played music and voiceover just fine. Yeah I’m not sure how one speaker would be for an iPhone in 2025. I think if I were going to get a new phone right now I’ll probably get the standard basic 17. But right now my new iPhone is an iPhone 15 that I just got on August 15 so I am totally happy with that phone. But I hope you can get something that you’re feel happy with. Just curious, what are you upgrading from?

Dave,

i was literally going ask the same question. to be honest, i am considering an IPAD for tv here in the uk like ITV BBC IPLAYER etc. and netflix; which ipad do you have?

i think, if you and i, plus others, don't rely on the phone for well, lot like tv etc. it should be fine as a daily driver.

i have gotten so used though to my iphone 14 pro max but it is a heavy device.
also, with the battery case would you need the phone to not have a case on it, to use the battery if you need it? if going to do that, so buy the extra battery may as well just get a pro?

Will

I have the iPhone air, and have had no issue with the mono speaker as far as volume is concerned.
The bass reduction is noticeable with VoiceOver voices, though, especially male ones.

As for the weight difference, though it is not much, the Air has a much nicer in-hand feel than any of the 17 series phones.

Hope this helps and happy to answer any further questions.

I’m currently trying to choose between the iPhone air and the iPhone 17 pro, I have been using the air for a couple of days and I have to say the mono speaker is better than I expected in terms of VoiceOver use, as mentioned on here I think if you are a heavy media user I probably wouldn’t recommend this phone, but if you are going to use headphones for media playback, it’s absolutely fine. It’s very early days for me but the battery seems to be holding up okay as well, not a noticeable difference from my 16 pro. Please feel free to reach out to me directly if you have any further questions.

I found while I absolutely love my pro max, I’n considering returning it and getting air, I thought I’ll be fine with the size, had pro maxs before, mainly 11 pro max, but it somehow feels more unwieldy than I’ve expected, 6.5 inchs is in the pro max range I’m used to, plus thinness factor, but battery and overheating worries me, if only it had liquid cooling too

Unless I'm mistaken, it isn't a numbered phone. The rumour is it is a test bed for the foldable coming out next year, or half of it at least. I would say to myself and David, why not wait another year and see if there is a new Air with stereo speakers... But I do wonder if the Air will ever be updated.

And, yes, forgive me, I think it was the 7 that was the last with a single speaker.

I live in the centre of Bristol and, especially in the summer, it gets noisy with the windows open. I don't always want to wear AirPods.

I guess, for me, when it's a bag of sand for a dog and bone, I don't want any compromises. Aside from the feel of it, I'd be worried about the size of the screen. Even if it's really thin, it's a lot of space which those without any sight really need. For the partially sighted, it might be perfect though. I find big screens actively more difficult than larger ones, more space to get lost and the current standard size is just small enough for me to use one-handed.

Regarding iPads, again a questionable device for those without sight, in my view, I think the iPad Mini is awesome. The Braille screen input and commands work really well on it without the whole thing being overwhelming size-wise.

I guess the question would be, if you're using your iPad for media consumption, which I rarely do these days because I just do it on my 15 Pro, what will you be doing on the phone? Again, a lot of money for something that is enhibbited. the pro max, on the other hand, is way too big for me. It won't fit in the clever little pocket I have in my Karhartt WIP Jeans.

The other thing for me is, buying a phone now would probably prohibit buying whatever comes next year which, I feel, will be about when I'm ready to move on. Every three generations seems about right, to my mind.

I did have a quick fondle of my brother-in-law’s 17 Pro, it is very nicely made but, it's also, when it comes to it, pretty much exactly the same as what I've got.

Anyway, like usual, I'm repeating myself.

@Oliver,
This is why I love my iPhone SE 2022 so much. For me, the size of the device is perfect for my used case.
Regarding the iPhone Air, I wonder if next year we will see something like an iPhone Air E model?

I think apple are trying to unify their model structure, I.E. Base model, air mmodel, and pro models, having a budget model for an air will be so out of character for apple, especially how apple is trying to position the air as a premium device, more than the bass models at least.

I had an iPad mini six generation, and it was very confusing for me as somebody who has been totally blind since birth. I just could not get myself used to the split screen view of apps, and the fact that cannot be disabled for a voiceover. It was completely dumb in my opinion. It was just way too much screen real estate for me to get lost in. I’ve never been able to get this hang of screen input for the broiling thing so that was really not really an option for me. My iPad was basically used for me to play my music from Apple Music. I really didn’t do much at all of that. I ended up trading in the iPad mini in order to get my iPhone 15 which is my current daily driver. I kept my iPhone SE third generation to use as an iPod. So literally I use that for YouTube other web browsing email and music in my calendar things like that. It’s working perfectly fine though. I figured I’d keep it since the last device with a home button and it still gets updates. So I will keep it as long as I have life left in it. Same thing goes to my iPhone 15. I’m perfectly happy with the size of this. I really don’t want anything any bigger. This is the regular base model iPhone 15. And I’m so happy that that phone came in pink. The iPhone SE didn’t but product was closed enough. It’s kind of disappointing that none of the new phones come in pink. None of the new phones even coming product red. But yeah, I think orange would be kind of cool. Maybe my next phone will be orange. We’ll just have to see. I think it’ll be a long time before I get a new phone though. I just got my iPhone 15 August 15 of this year and I got my iPhone SE in July 2023 so those will be still around for a while and continuing to receive software updates. Honestly, even when they don’t, I may still keep them because it doesn’t stop them from working, they’ll still be great iPods. Especially because my iPhone 15 is the 512 gig variant so they’ll be plenty of space for Music. I’m looking forward to the day of the applicant fix the bug or some of the voices just stopped working. One of my favorite stuff working. Who is Karen premium. So for now, I’m using regular Karen on my iPhone 15. I’m using regular Samantha on my iPhone SE third generation. But this way I don’t have to worry about any of the voices auto deleting or doing any weird things like that. At least my two favorites are both preinstalled.

I think the Air is one of a kind. There will likely be a 17 E in the spring with a 60 hz screen, single camera, but updated to the A19, the same playbook as this year’s 16 E for £599/$599. I think the Air, spiritually, if not cost-wise, will be replaced with the Fold as the 'new and shiny' prong of the offerings.

@Singer Girl, I completely understand this. If I had to give up any device, it would be my iPad Mini. I get it out from time to time and think, “Ooh, isn't this nice? Nice to be away from the busyness of my phone,” but then I forget to charge it, can't really carry it around the house with me whilst doing chores, and find myself returning to my iPhone 15 Pro, which sounds great for audiobooks, podcasts, etc. Half the volume from an Air simply wouldn't cut it for me; it would be a step back.

As for the Fold and us... Who knows, maybe there will be a brilliant use case? One thing that did occur to me was if it has a 5.8-inch exterior screen, as rumoured, it, in its folded state, would be one of the smallest phones Apple has made for a long time, though with the useless advantage of making the screen much bigger in its unfolded state. Maybe we could argue it is easier for Braille input, but it would be a fairly narrow use case. For those who would buy a new iPhone and an iPad Mini, maybe this will be the replacement, with the Apple tax on top? Who knows. I just feel it is probably where all phones are going, and in ten years or so, folds will be the norm, that or VR glasses.

I have an iPhone 16E right now. I have only had the phone for a couple of months, but I am tempted by both the pro and the air for different reasons. I want the iPhone 17 pro because it has far less compromises, like stereo speakers, more camera features, not useful to us for the most part, and a lidar sensor. Plus, the battery is bigger. However, the other part of me does want to try out the iPhone air at the very least because I like the idea of a super thin phone, but I also know it's going to have a large cost in the battery life department, plus the mono speaker. On my 16E, I love playing music through the speakers because they sound great and the bass sounds incredible; I listen to a lot of bass-heavy music. The concerning thing about the 17 pro and pro max is the corners of the plateau, which I know can be mitigated by a decent case, but I don't want the corners of the plateau getting scratched or chipped because apple didn't put a schamfer or anything on the edge to prevent this from happening.

You only have to worry about the scratches on the plateau if you get one of their colored models. If you go with orange or blue, that’s something that you would need to worry about however, the silver you don’t need to.

I'm totally blind so screen real estate is actually a negative point for me, which is why I opted for the iPhone 17 Pro that is yet to be delivered instead of the Pro Max, and have an iPad Mini A17 Pro instead of a bigger iPad Air or iPad Pro. Speakers are also totally irrelevant on a phone for me, since I only really use them to interact with VoiceOver, and in noisy environments I just wear AirPods which I can also switch to Apple Watch. On an iPad, however, I can't really stand the mono speaker on the baseline models, and this personal pet peeve goes all the way back to my sighted days with the first 3 iPad models, so these days my screen and speaker needs as a blind user combined dictated my preference for the iPad Mini with 4 speakers that work properly in any orientation.

For media consumption, in my opinion nothing beats AirPods or beats headphones with the H1 chip or better with their immersive spatial audio, which is already remarkable on its own, but takes on a whole new level of realism when combined with their head position tracking technology. The immersive audio experience of watching the first documentary about dinosaurs narrated by David Attenborough on Apple TV Plus with my AirPods Max blew me away. When the show began I went to my living room with transparency mode enabled to say something to my sister who was living with me at the time, and hearing David Attenborough suddenly start speaking seemingly from behind me was a bit scary due to how real it felt. These days I own a pair of each tier of the latest generation of AirPods, but haven't found the time to properly try AirPods Pro 3 yet since they only arrived on Monday along with some other Apple gear that I ordered along with the aforementioned iPhone.

As for the iPhone Air, my opinion is that it's a form over factor compromise, and I refuse to pay for that kind of stuff, especially considering that it has a higher price yet worse specs than the baseline iPhone 17.

The Air, unlike the base, has 12 gb of ram and the 19 pro chip. It does have one less GPU core than the pro, but the brains, at least, are better than the base version. If that matters to us, I don't know. I think it's more useful for those who play a lot of graphic intensive games or are processing video and images.

I think the 17 base model is, unlike previous years, the biggest bang for ones buck, though can completely understand why people wish to get the best of the best with the pro. To me, the £300 difference between base and pro just doesn't seem worth it, but we all perceive cost based on our own scale.

I am tempted by the 17, but really don't need it. The step up from the 15 pro in battery, slight reduction in weight and thickness, enough for the £400 I'd have to spend for the upgrade. Maybe next year.