iPhone 17 Air could sacrifice sound quality for super slimness

The latest leak about the iPhone 17 Slim, aka the iPhone 17 Air, is giving us serious déjà vu: in its quest for super slimness, Apple is apparently willing to jettison some key features.

If that sounds familiar, it's because Apple did the same with the original MacBook Air way back in 2008.

While the Air was spectacularly slim, it was also quite limited in its performance. Today's MacBook Airs don't compromise – they're flying machines that don't sacrifice power for portability – but there was a serious lack of ports on the original model. The storage was small and the battery life wasn't brilliant neither.

And now a new iPhone 17 report suggests that similar sacrifices are being considered for the iPhone.

The leak comes via tech site The Information (paywall), which has an excellent track record of breaking Apple news. According to the site, the slim iPhone will jettison one of its speakers and come with a smaller battery too.

Will the iPhone 17 slim have a slimmer specification?

It says that the slim iPhone 17 will be just 5 to 6mm thick, excluding the camera module, making it almost or exactly as slim as the latest iPad Pro M4. However, in order to achieve that, Apple has had to remove the lower stereo speaker and fit a smaller battery too.

The physical SIM tray is also gone, and the camera module is a large bump centred on the back of the phone.

The report says that the design isn't completely finalised yet, and that Apple is still encountering some challenges – especially around battery capacity and physically cramming components into the ultra-thin case.

But it also confirms rumours that Apple is prioritising style over substance for the slim iPhone, and that appears to be a very different direction from Samsung, which is also reportedly working on a Galaxy S25 Slim.

That phone is expected to have a higher spec than other Galaxy S25 models, at least in the camera department.