The iPhone 17 Air was being explored with a ‘portless’ design, which would make it the first time that Apple would introduce such a massive change, no doubt inviting a barrage of controversy with this release. While the Cupertino giant could use the term ‘courage’ again to describe its decision taken with the portless iPhone the same way it did when it removed the 3.5mm audio jack from the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus launch, thankfully, sanity prevailed, and the company decided against this decision, and we all have the EU to thank for this.
The EU would have likely banned the portless iPhone 17 Air from launching in several countries while also penalizing Apple with a bevy of fines
The transition to an all ‘USB-C’ affair started when the EU made it compulsory for companies like Apple to add this port to all of its products, so it is no surprise that the iPhone 17 Air shipping with no charging port would have placed the company in the European Union’s crosshairs. According to Mark Gurman’s ‘Power On’ newsletter, with details spotted by AppleInsider, the decision to launch an iPhone 17 Air with a port was made to avoid any ramifications from the EU.
There were also two iPhone 17 Air prototypes being tested, with the larger one sporting a 6.9-inch display. The variant that Apple intends to mass produce has a 6.6-inch panel, and even though it will offer less screen real estate, it will be more durable than the bigger version. After all, a larger and thinner iPhone 17 Air will be prone to bending, much like the case with the 13-inch M4 iPad Pro, which took little effort to snap because of its sleek design.
The California-based giant likely wishes to avoid another ‘bendgate’ controversy that it had to endure with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus launch, so it is looking for a combination that will make the iPhone 17 Air slimmer and durable at the same time. As you would expect, the sleeker frame will introduce some compromises, with Apple said to forego the ultrawide-angle camera in favor of a bigger battery, but those trade-offs are necessary to trim the device to such levels.