Joe Maring / Android Authority
The rumors about the iPhone Air were true. Just a few months after Samsung launched the Galaxy S25 Edge, Apple has thrown its hat in the ring with its own ultra-thin iPhone.
At first glance, the iPhone Air does look impressive. The 5.6mm body is shockingly thin, the display looks great, and having the latest A19 Pro chip is quite the achievement. However, there was one aspect more than anything else that I was curious to hear about: battery life.
The Galaxy S25 Edge proved that super-slim phones come with serious battery compromises, and I was looking forward to hearing what Apple’s solution to this would be. I like the idea of an ultra-thin and light phone, but only if there’s a real way to avoid mediocre battery life.
This is what I was hoping Apple would figure out with the iPhone Air, but it’s plainly obvious that the company failed to do so.
iPhone Air: Hot or Not? 89 votes Hot 40 % Not 60 %
Let’s talk about battery life
During the iPhone Air segment of yesterday’s Apple event, Apple’s SVP of Hardware Engineering, John Ternus, had a dedicated section to talk about the phone’s battery life (which begins at the 51:28 mark in the video above). It started promising enough, with Ternus saying that Apple had “innovated in both hardware and software to deliver great battery life for iPhone Air.”
Cool! That sounds promising. So, what kind of innovations are we talking about? A silicon carbide battery? Some kind of new power-efficient display or chipset design? Not exactly.
The first solution Apple mentioned is iOS 26’s Adaptive Power Mode — a type of battery-saver mode that makes “performance adjustment” throughout the day to help give you longer battery life. This can include lowering your screen brightness, increasing loading times for some activities, etc. In other words, to get good battery life on the iPhone Air, you won’t be able to use the phone at its full capacity.
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