iPhone 17 Slim specs will be an enormous engineering & supply chain challenge
Apple's supply chain will be challenged to produce the rumored iPhone 17 Slim. Here's what features the company is rumored to jam into the thinnest iPhone yet.
A render of what the iPhone 17 Slim could look like
The iPhone 17 Slim is expected to form part of the next batch of flagship launches in fall 2025. To prepare for that launch, Apple's supply chain is starting to perform the initial tasks required to actually manufacture it.
According to supply chain sources of DigiTimes, the iPhone 17 Slim or Air has moved to the New Product Introduction (NPI) phase of manufacturing.
The NPI process is an early phase, where assembly partners check Apple's design and determine ways that they can construct what's required in a production line. Due to the sheer volume of iPhones made each year, this is an important time to perfect the actual construction process.
The iPhone 17 Slim is arriving at this point slightly late versus others in the same generation. In late October, it was reported that a factory in India started the NPI process for the iPhone 17, with Pro models continuing in China.
While DigiTimes isn't necessarily that accurate when it comes to product features, it does tend to fare well with supply chain rumors and leaks. Given the typical timing of Apple's production schedules, the iPhone 17 Slim NPI claim seems quite plausible.
iPhone 17 Slim - Ultra-thin design & advanced tech are a complicated challenge
The NPI process is usually a puzzle manufacturers have to solve, but the iPhone 17 Slim could be tougher than usual. The ultra-thin design expected to be about 6 millimeters thick leaves less room than usual to hold all of the components Apple requires.
This has already resulted in some design changes, including having to lose the SIM tray completely, because it's simply too thin to fit one in. This is somewhat unsurprising, as Apple has already moved to an eSIM-only approach in the United States, which it could eventually roll out into other countries.
The battery has been a supposed issue, with expectations that a design with a new substrate which can be made thin enough won't be possible until 2025.
A thinner battery in a more constrained space than usual introduces the problem of physical strength, since there will be less physical material in use. It will also affect the capacity of the battery, simply because it will be occupy less internal volume than other designs. This has been practically proven by the iPhone mini designs having notably shorter battery life than the contemporaneous mainline and Pro models.
The rear camera bump is also an element facing change, with rumors in December claiming it will use a horizontal bar design high on the back to hold multiple cameras. The radical redesign of the camera is questionable, considering Apple's aims for thinness and positioning of other components.
This includes affecting how the iPhone 17 Slim has to be held to capture Spatial Video, a format used to produce video viewable on the Apple Vision Pro. Currently, this entails holding an iPhone in landscape orientation, but a bar design could force holding it in portrait.
Since Spatial Video uses stereoscopic image capture, it needs the two sensors to be relatively far apart for the effect to work. Moving to a portrait orientation could limit how much space is available to separate the two sensors for that purpose.
The positioning of the rumored camera bar was also questionable when considering the front TrueDepth camera array. The rear cameras would be placed in the same physical space as the front camera system, making it improbable to be implemented that way.
One analyst also believes that Apple could reduce the camera count to just one 48-megapixel rear sensor and the front 24-megapixel TrueDepth camera for Face ID.
With one high-resolution camera, Apple could still offer consumers a level of optical zoom, using the cropping trick employed by current-gen iPhones to fake a second camera sensor.
Expectations also include the use of a 6.6-inch display, the A19 chip using a 3-nanometer process, and 8GB of memory, with the chip and memory probably being adopted by the iPhone 17 as well.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
"...an enormous engineering & supply chain challenge"
All in pursuit of an iPhone that's 1/16th of an inch thinner than what we have. Or: about 3/100ths of an inch thinner than the iPhone 6 from TEN YEARS ago. Nice to see that Apple is attempting a "moon shot" with this incredible iPhone, cough, "advancement." I sure hope there is some enormous and stunning surprise feature/innovation to this phone that the rumor mill has missed. If not, this might be the greatest waste of time, money and talent in pursuit of nothing special that I've ever seen from Apple. The iPhone Mini was a far bolder swing at a new form factor than this nonsense.Even Image Playground will not reveal the secret new phone…
Whether or not Apple will actually bring one to market is highly debatable. There's a market for iPhones with smaller screens yet Apple abandoned the iPhone mini after just two generations despite the fact that all iPhones in the early 2010s were around this size.
Remember that you are not the sole user of any Apple product and other people have differing preferences. Apple is not your mom cooking you your favorite breakfast. You are not at the center of Apple's universe (thank God).
Anyhow, if this ever comes to fruition, it will be from years and years of development. It's not like they just came up with the idea a few months ago and had a couple of interns whip up a prototype for the senior execs to examine.
As for specific features of this rumored vaporware iPhone Slim, it's crazy to believe any of these rumors as confirmed facts. All of those "features" just simply guesstimates based on what Apple has done in the past and what might make sense from a COGS or BOM perspective.
Only the truly naïve would believe that the iPhone Slim is a done deal right now. I hope there's no one that nutty here at AppleInsider's forums.
Will I upgrade to the 17 Slim? Maybe. Maybe not.
While you are being cynical about yet another iPhone you need to remember that the iPhone is half of Apple's revenue stream and pays for all the other engineering marvels that Apple produces each year. Including the amazing M(1-5) chips; the Vision Pro, yes that too plus the phenomenal Mac range from the Mini to the Pro.
And yes, I have been mocking the Vision Pro headset since it came out. But aside from the passable Quest that Meta produces now Google + Samsung are getting into the fray. So is there a future for mixed realty headsets that I don't see? Maybe at $1999 I am a potential buyer. And if there is enough compelling content I will keep it.
But I wish that Apple hadn't cancelling so prematurely the Apple Car. I say prematurely because it could have been titled the Apple Car Driving Software and incorporated into the many EVs that are now coming out from China on top of the ones from Europe, Korea and the US. Apple's software would have been such a boost to the subpar software that is being delivered with those cars and arguably it could have streamlined the vehicle experience. Meaning that you could purchase a BMW. Tomorrow trade it in for a Ford Mustang Mach anything and there would be zero learning curve because the underpinnings - with a few customisations - is being driven by Apple Car Driving Software.
Somehow Apple missed that. They envisioned a car built with a 3rd party - Korea? - using Apple's software. I always saw it as a form of Android. Software that could be integrated into any car regardless of the manufacturer. It would have turned into a 3+ trillion business instead of having to rely on yet another iPhone no matter how fancy that no one really needs.
I follow the EV news on a daily basis and from what I can see there will be a tipping point at which everyone will want and own one. Apple Car Driving Software could have offered an amazing driving experience knowing how Apple is so phenomenal in creating software that makes a huge difference.
Instead every car manufacturer is delivering their own version which for the most part is laughable. Junk software that doesn't really really rise to the challenge of what EVs can potentially be. From battery efficiency to range extension to safety features and on and on.
Instead we are stuck withe Apple and Google Car play a lame cast of the phone that delivers little more than just maps and music.
Sad.
I also don't get the attraction of making a phone thinner. It's at the point where that doesn't matter. The sacrifices of thinner don't make it better. I'd much rather the phone be back sized as the original with an enormous battery that lasts days. Oh, and that stupid camera bump??? Stop it.
I'm honestly not opposed to another iPhone at all! I'm not even opposed to "slim" as the design goal for a new phone, per se. Hey, it the rumors were that this was going to be half the thickness of current phones, now I'm impressed! I want to SEE that phone! What I'm being cynical about is "another iPhone" whose entire reason for being (at least based on all the rumors thus far) is that it's 1/16th of an inch thinner than the iPhone we have now. In terms of wow factor, this is more like the iPhone 15 Pro design change where Apple subtly rounded off the edges of the flat sides. I actually thought this made a significant positive difference in the hand feel of the phone (I don't use a case), but the Slim seems as silly as if Apple had introduced a whole new model of the rounded-edge 15 Pro called the iPhone Pro Comfort. But listen: if there's more to iPhone Slim than what I've read--something akin to the engineering marvel that was the original Macbook Air--then YAY Apple! Bring it on! The iPhone lineup could really use some excitement. But a sixteenth of an inch thinner ain't it!
Apple didn't abandon the iPhone Mini--people didn't buy it... BIG difference. (At least not in the numbers to keep it viably profitable to manufacture.) I can't imagine how much money Apple lost on the Mini because it was an all new phone, not a model franken-built from parts of prior iPhones like the smaller screen SE. So a 2-year run probably didn't amortize the costs of R&D, tooling, production test runs, etc. The Mini wasn't for me, but I honestly thought it would be a huge hit for Apple, at least based on wishes for a smaller screen iPhone that I kept reading online. More evidence that commentary in tech forums like this one is not representative of the general public. The exclamation point at the end of all this is that the last smaller screen iPhone, the SE, will be no more when Apple revises it next year. Instead of being based on the iPhone 8 body, it will be based on the larger screen iPhone 14.
I would not mind buying one. I can always resell it later if needed. Already using two phones daily. Sure there’ll be plenty of interested parties want to buy it from me
One of the biggest gripes over the years is
battery size Will people sacrifice battery life for slimness
Even years ago HarmonyOS on a car far outpaced CarPlay and Huawei in fact already does exactly what you would have liked Apple to do but, once again far outpaces an Apple distrubuted software system because it also produces vital car component systems such as the powertrain, the onboard mini data systems, cloud infrastructure, communications systems, charging infrastructure, AI (real time object detection and climatalogical evaluation), AR-HUDs etc.
A manufacturer can sign up for different options and not need to go all-in.
Most US and EU manufacturers may have subpar implementations and many have turned to China for different solutions simply because they are best in class.
This is from 2022 and has come a long way since then but it is clear how far ahead China was (and still is).
https://m.gsmarena.com/aito_m5_harmonyos_system_quick_review-news-54285.php
Apple is still struggling to create a 5G modem. It wouldn't be able to manage V2X and all the other autonomous car aspects that integrate them into smart cities for example.
Even Tesla which already has shipping products has suffered.
If Apple is rumoured to experience an engineering challenge for a slim phone I can't knock them for pulling out of an expensive car project when competitors are already gaining traction with models to cover all price brands.
https://kr-asia.com/avatr-and-huawei-deepen-ev-partnership-under-upgraded-hi-plus-model