Apple’s 2025 iPhone lineup may add a brand new dimension with the iPhone 17 Slim. This is what the rumor mill believes is on the best way.
The iPhone 17 technology is predicted this September, as traditional for Apple’s flagship machine releases. Nevertheless, the 2025 assortment may make a giant change to the lineup, with the substitute of one of many fashions.
Based on a number of rumors, the iPhone 17 Plus may very well be faraway from the lineup, because of an absence of recognition in comparison with the opposite fashions. As a replacement, Apple may introduce one thing model new.
Present expectations are that it may very well be the iPhone 17 Slim or iPhone 17 Air, a model of the iPhone that goals to be thinner than the others within the vary.
What follows is a compilation of the rumors and hypothesis concerning the inbound slimline smartphone, and what you’ll be able to count on from it if it ships later in 2025.
iPhone 17 Slim might be actually skinny
Because the identify implies, the iPhone 17 Slim might be a lot thinner than the same old iPhone. The iPhone SE is the thinnest in Apple’s vary at 0.29 inches, with the iPhone 16 at 0.31 inches.
As to how skinny it may go, an apparent information is the iPad Professional with M4. The thinnest cellular machine in Apple’s catalog, it’s a miniscule 0.20 inches thick.
Going again to Might 2024, a report insisted {that a} skinny iPhone will ship in 2025, as a part of the iPhone vary. The machine, codenamed D23, represented a significant redesign for the iPhone, with the adjustments apparently as groundbreaking because the introduction of the iPhone X.
Nevertheless, that report did not say how thick it may very well be, aside from sporting a thinner chassis.
The iPhone 17 Slim may very well be very skinny, in comparison with present iPhones
Two months later, Ming-Chi Kuo chimed in on the matter. Nevertheless, aside from insisting it is going to have a titanium-aluminum alloy body for energy, Kuo additionally did not supply how skinny it may get.
An October rumor added that the thickness of the iPhone Slim was restricted by the battery. There was an obvious want to make use of new substrates to make the battery thinner, which seemingly restricted the iPhone 17 Slim to a minimal thinness of 6mm.
By November, analyst Jeff Pu made the declare that the iPhone 17 Slim would measure solely 6mm (0.23 inches) thick, echoing the battery rumor.
Kuo supplied in one other report in January that the thickness may very well be even smaller, simply 5.5mm. Nevertheless, that may very well be for simply the thinnest a part of the machine, slightly than a median thickness or at its thickest level.
iPhone 17 Slim might have a smaller display than the Plus
Whereas the iPhone 17 Slim will virtually actually be thinner than the would-be Plus mannequin, it will not essentially be greater.
Kuo’s earlier rumored specs checklist mentioned it might have a 6.6-inch show. This might be smaller than the 6.7-inch iPhone 16 Plus display.
An April 2024 report from DSCC’s Ross Younger additionally introduced up that the Plus mannequin in 2025 may very well be have a small quantity of show shrinkage. It isn’t totally out of the bounds of actuality for Younger’s report back to be concerning the Slim’s show because the substitute to the Plus.
Pu’s October report additionally talked about the usage of a 6.6-inch show, which correlates with Kuo’s proclamation.
iPhone 17 Slim may have a barely smaller display than the iPhone 16 Plus
In terms of the opposite show specs, Kuo insisted that it might have a decision of two,740 by 1,260, which might be near the two,76 by 1,290 decision of the iPhone 16 Plus.
There have been additionally claims that the Slim may inherit the 120Hz ProMotion show system from the Professional fashions. This was raised as a rumor as just lately as December 30.
Whereas a beautiful addition for the iPhone 17 Slim, particularly whether it is to be a featured mannequin launch, there may be nonetheless some doubt to it truly occurring. For Apple so as to add ProMotion to the mannequin, it might imply the Professional fashions would lose one of many line’s huge promoting factors.
iPhone 17 Slim might be eSIM solely
Creating a really skinny smartphone can create some appreciable engineering challenges, which meeting companions and provide chain members have to unravel.
This was apparently evident when the mannequin moved to the New Product Introduction section of producing in December. A section the place meeting companions examine Apple’s design and decide the right way to truly mass-produce it.
Clearly, with skinny designs come compromise, and in November reviews, that apparently means some connectivity points.
It was claimed that the physique was too skinny to squeeze a SIM card slot into the aspect.
The iPhone 17 Slim might have just one digicam, and no SIM slot in any respect.
This would possibly not essentially sound like a difficulty in america, which has already converted to eSIM use. Nevertheless, in nations comparable to China that rely extra on bodily SIM playing cards and have regulatory worries over eSIM use, it may grow to be an issue.
A related connectivity compromise may very well be 5G connectivity. Experiences claimed that Apple would swap to utilizing its personal in-house modem as an alternative of a Qualcomm mannequin.
This might be a win for Apple, however with claims that the height speeds weren’t as excessive for the brand new modem, and with much less mobile reliability, Apple needed to reduce its ambitions. This supposedly included pulling mmWave from the modem.
It is going to nonetheless help 5G, however the sub-6GHz bands, not the high-speed high-bandwidth ones.
The wi-fi communication adjustments might not be restricted to only 5G. In October, Kuo forecast that Apple might be lowering its reliance on Broadcom for Wi-Fi chips, in favor of its personal designs.
That shift is about to begin within the second half of 2025, coinciding with the iPhone 17 technology, together with the Slim.
iPhone 17 Slim’s digicam bump controversy
Being extraordinarily skinny might not be the one seen change within the iPhone 17 Slim. It might even have a significant alteration to the skin, which might affect how thick the general machine may be.
The digicam bump on the rear is a bit that stands out on the iPhone, primarily as a result of massive volumes required for the digicam module itself. Even when Apple slims down the principle physique, the modules will nonetheless take up a number of house.
In a single attainable resolution, an early declare from Kuo’s specs checklist is that Apple may scale back the bump by eliminating a few of the cameras. It is believable for Apple to work round the necessity to release house by merely utilizing one Vast digicam as an alternative of a number of sensors.
This does not appear that odd as a plan. Apple already fakes a telephoto digicam sensor within the iPhone 16 just by cropping the high-resolution foremost digicam, giving customers “three” cameras as an alternative of two.
It isn’t a lot of a stretch to imagine Apple may go one additional with the Slim, transferring to at least one bodily sensor however two cameras.
The restricted variety of cameras was additionally raised by TheElec in November, insisting that the impressively-featured Slim will not have a Professional-style triple digicam setup, and could be extra more likely to have the twin setup of non-Professional fashions.
An instance of the supposed bar placement on the iPhone 17 Slim – Picture Credit score: Digital Chat Station/Weibo
In December, the rumors concerning the rear cameras went a bit bizarre, with claims that Apple was going to modify from a sq. or small digicam bump in favor of a digicam bar. Stretched throughout the width of the again of the iPhone 17 Slim, the bump would put the cameras in a row throughout the highest.
Together with one Weibo declare on the time, one other leaker supplied up a picture supposedly depicting an iPhone chassis body that supported the rumor. Nevertheless, it was unimaginable to inform whether or not it was an actual picture or a deliberately-created faux.
Lower than per week later, one other Weibo leak claimed the redesign was not going to be as main. There would nonetheless be a triangular format for 3 cameras, not the horizontal bar.
This might’ve been put to mattress, however one other leak in January revived the bar rumors.
A picture sourced from the “public Internet” and shared by a leaker and a BilliBilli video depicted what seemed like an iPhone again, with a piece on the high that resembled the digicam bar, full with holes for cameras.
Once more, there was no strategy to decide if it was actual or faux. However, since it is a element that additionally covers the house of the place the entrance digicam for Face ID would go, it grew to become a reasonably uncertain rumor to imagine.
On the marginally extra plausible entrance, Pu’s August word on the iPhone 17 insisted that the TrueDepth digicam might be upgraded to a 24-megapixel model. This appears much more believable, and in addition much more more likely to be included within the Slim.
