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.