Apple pushes back next iPhone Air as demand falls flat

Apple is pushing the next iPhone Air off its 2026 roadmap after the ultra thin model failed to sell, a sign that buyers still care more about battery life and camera hardware than shaving off a millimetre of thickness.

When Apple unveiled the 5.6 mm thick iPhone Air alongside the iPhone 17 family in September 2025, it sold the device as proof that it could still surprise on industrial design. The Air sat above the regular iPhone 17 in price, close to the Pro line, despite clear compromises in battery capacity and camera configuration.

On paper it looked like the logical fourth iPhone after the short lived iPhone mini and the lukewarm iPhone Plus, filling the gap between the base model and the Pro. As we argued in our iPhone 17 launch analysis, the risk was obvious: if you charge Pro money for visible trade offs, most buyers will just buy the real Pro or stick with the cheaper base model. The Air was always going to be a hard sell in that context, something we also flagged in our guide to choosing between the iPhone 17 and iPhone Air.

What The Information is reporting

According to a report from The Information, Apple has now delayed the second generation iPhone Air that had been scheduled to land in autumn 2026. People involved in the project say the device is off that release window, with no firm new date. The common thread across the coverage is simple enough: the first generation Air sold below Apple’s internal expectations, and production has already been cut to near end of life levels.

Reuters and others summarise the situation the same way. The Air was meant to be the thinnest iPhone in the lineup, which it is, but that came with a smaller battery and reduced camera hardware. Weak demand means Apple has scaled back production and is no longer committing to an annual refresh for the line. The company is not commenting, which is exactly what you would expect while it works out whether the Air is worth saving or quietly shuffling off the roadmap.

The fourth iPhone problem

This is not the first time Apple has struggled to find a permanent fourth slot in the iPhone range. The iPhone mini was effectively killed by poor sales. The Plus tier that followed also failed to find a sustainable audience. In each case Apple tried to carve out a niche between the mainline iPhone and the Pro, either by shrinking the device or by stretching the screen and trimming features.

The Air is the latest attempt at that same idea. Instead of small or big, Apple went thin. You got a premium titanium chassis, a 5.6 mm profile and the marketing story that this was the design forward iPhone for people who cared more about hand feel than raw spec sheets. You did not get a big battery, a multi lens camera system or the Pro level thermal headroom that heavy users now expect.

It is not surprising that buyers looked at a thousand dollar phone with a single rear camera and worse battery life and decided that the regular iPhone 17 or 17 Pro looked like better value. Production data and channel checks that leaked throughout October already pointed in that direction. Today’s delay just confirms that the experiment did not land the way Apple hoped.

Thinness versus physics

At 5.6 mm thick, the iPhone Air is a nice piece of engineering. You get a slim titanium frame, Ceramic Shield glass with a new anti reflective coating and a device that is genuinely light in the hand. The problem is that physics does not care about Apple’s industrial design goals.

A thinner chassis means less room for battery and less volume for moving heat away from the SoC. Reports put the Air’s battery around the low 3,000 mAh mark, smaller than comparable Pro models, paired with a single 48 MP rear camera instead of the trio that Apple now treats as standard on its top phones. You can only do so much with software when you remove hardware entirely.

The planned second generation Air was reportedly meant to address some of these weaknesses. Rumours pointed to a slightly larger battery, a vapor chamber cooling system similar to what is in the iPhone 17 Pro and potentially a second high resolution rear camera. In other words, Apple was already trying to claw back some of the performance and camera losses that came with the first generation design.

The fact that Apple is hitting pause before that course correction ships tells you how soft the demand curve looks. If customers are not buying the concept at all, it is cheaper to cancel factory tooling and reallocate capacity than to push ahead and hope marketing can fix the fundamentals.

Production cuts and a quiet retreat

Supply chain reporting fills in the rest of the story. Contract manufacturers have already wound down most of their iPhone Air capacity. Foxconn is said to be dismantling all but a token number of Air production lines, with remaining output expected to stop by the end of November. Luxshare reportedly stopped making the phone in October.

There is a pattern here. First you see component orders cut. Then factory utilisation quietly drops. Then the flagship press leaks appear that talk about a model being delayed rather than flat out cancelled. Officially the project stays alive in case demand suddenly appears or the engineering work can be reused somewhere else. In practice it is a controlled retreat.

Meanwhile Apple is shifting volume to where the demand really is. Reports out of Asia suggest that the standard iPhone 17 is significantly outperforming its predecessor, helped by new display features and better battery life, while the Pro line continues to act as the profit engine. In that world the Air is dead weight, not a growth story.

A wider retreat from ultra thin phones

Apple is not alone in discovering that ultra thin is a niche taste. Samsung has reportedly cancelled its own ultra slim Galaxy S26 Edge project after weak interest in its predecessor. Industry reporting out of Korea and India paints a similar picture: buyers may admire the hardware on YouTube, but when it comes time to spend their own money they tend to pick the thicker phone with the bigger battery and better camera stack.

This is not a new lesson. The industry already went through a thinness obsession in the mid 2010s that produced bend prone handsets, tiny batteries and hot SoCs. The difference this time is that phones are much more expensive and upgrade cycles are longer. If you convince someone to drop four figures on a flagship, they expect it to last and they expect it to handle long gaming sessions, heavy camera use and a full day on 5G. Thinness on its own does not win that argument.

We have also seen a shift in what counts as aspirational. Foldables, camera bricks with one inch sensors and gaming phones with active cooling are all thick, heavy devices. They sell on capability. A phone that wins on thickness but loses on the two specs most people care about battery life and camera quality is fighting the wrong battle.

What this means for Apple’s roadmap

The immediate impact is on the 2026 iPhone lineup. The second generation Air was expected to sit alongside the iPhone 18 Pro family and Apple’s first foldable iPhone in autumn 2026. That slot now looks empty. Instead Apple is said to be focusing the autumn launch on the high margin Pro and foldable models, with the standard iPhone 18 and a lower cost iPhone 18e moving to a staggered spring 2027 release.

Apple has not publicly confirmed that schedule. It fits with a broader trend though. The company is already spacing out some launches and experimenting with split release windows to smooth supply chain peaks and extend the marketing runway. Dropping a weak seller like the Air from the busy autumn window is an easy win.

Longer term the question is whether Apple tries a fourth iPhone tier again. The mini, the Plus and now the Air have all underperformed for different reasons, but the root cause is the same. Customers understand the base model and they understand the Pro. Anything that sits in between has to be extremely compelling on either price or capability. The Air was not.

If Apple decides to keep the Air brand alive, the only realistic path is to stop treating thinness as the main selling point. A slightly thicker Air that keeps the lighter titanium design but restores a proper multi camera system and Pro class battery life starts to look more credible. At that point though you are very close to a Pro in everything but name, which raises awkward questions about pricing and product segmentation.

What it means for buyers

If you already bought an iPhone Air, nothing immediate changes. Apple will continue to support it with iOS updates and service parts for years. The bigger concern is resale value. Phones that sit on the wrong side of a product pivot often see their second hand prices sag faster than the models that remain in the core lineup.

If you were considering an Air, the equation is simpler. Unless you absolutely prioritise thinness and weight above battery life and camera flexibility, the regular iPhone 17 or 17 Pro still looks like the better choice in late 2025. You get thicker glass, more thermal headroom and camera hardware that can take advantage of Apple’s software pipeline in a way a single lens cannot match.

This episode is also a useful reminder when you watch the next launch keynote. Whenever a vendor spends most of its time talking about how a device looks and feels, take a close look at what they are not saying. If the answer is battery size and camera modules, there is usually a reason. As we have seen again with the iPhone Air, you can ship around physics for one generation, but the market tends to catch up very quickly.