By Dave Lee
Copyright channelnewsasia
NEW YORK: There was a time when thickness and weight were two main questions when buying new technology, maybe even the most important. That’s why, when Steve Jobs slipped a MacBook Air out of an envelope in 2008, we all oohed. It was a new dawn for laptops: finally some mercy for the world’s shoulders.
There were some performance trade-offs, but they were seen as worth it. The MacBook Air redefined expectations of how a laptop could look and feel, and it only got better from there. As well as MacBook Air, by 2013 we had the iPad Air, too.
Continuing the trend on Tuesday (Sep 9), Apple introduced the 5.64mm-thick iPhone Air to answer those critics who say that at 7.95mm, the new iPhone 17 is too thick, a certified whopper. If you can locate any of those critics, please send them to me because I don’t believe they exist.
Nor do I believe many consumers will care about thickness when they learn the iPhone Air means sacrificing things they worry about more than any other factor: battery life and a more capable camera.
These consumers also care about price. At US$999, the iPhone Air comes in at US$200 more than the more powerful 17, or just US$100 less than the full-featured 17 Pro. Is that a good deal to achieve thinness when you’re only going to stick this phone into a case immediately anyway?
This is one of the stranger products Apple has ever released. The company didn’t elaborate on what it meant by “all-day battery life”, but here’s a clue: Alongside the launch of the device, Apple showed off an accompanying external battery pack for “life’s busier days”. (It’s US$99.)
