iPhone 17 Air leak reveals wafer-thin battery, but its stamina may not be as bad as you think

• New images claim to show the iPhone 17 Air’s battery
• It looks to be about half the width of the iPhone 17 Pro’s battery
• Apple is reportedly working on advanced battery tech for the device

The iPhone 17 Air could be one of the best iPhones in many years, and with just a month until Apple is expected to unveil it, details and specifications have started to leak out. The latest rumor concerns the phone’s battery, and it raises some important questions about Apple’s slimline device.

As the name suggests, the iPhone 17 Air is tipped to be the thinnest iPhone in recent memory. That means it’s going to need a super-svelte battery on the inside, and that’s exactly what new images from Korean blog site Naver appear to detail.

There, leaker yeux1122 posted two images showing what they purport to be the iPhone 17 Air’s battery. In the first picture, the leaked battery is compared to one from the iPhone 17 Pro, with yeux1122 claiming that the former is just 2.49mm thick. Judging it by eye, it looks to be about half the width of the iPhone 17 Pro’s battery, which itself was leaked just a few days ago.

Battery capacity versus battery life

Clearly, cutting down the battery dimensions is necessary in a phone as slim as the iPhone 17 Air is expected to be. But that’s not the only consideration for Apple: it will need to ensure that the longevity of the battery is not negatively impacted by its size.

A previous leak from yeux1122 claimed that the iPhone 17 Air’s battery would have a 2,800mAh capacity. That’s notably less than the 3,582mAh battery in the iPhone 16 Pro and well below the 4,685mAh battery you’ll find in the iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the iPhone 17 Air will have poor battery life – after all, much of it comes down to how demanding the hardware and software are, and Apple is traditionally very good at optimizing these to eke out more battery life – something it’s rumored to be doing in iOS 26.

Also, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has previously claimed that Apple will use a “high-density” battery, while other rumors have pointed towards Apple using a new kind of advanced battery tech in the iPhone 17 Air.

Right now, this is all hearsay, and we won’t know for sure how well the iPhone 17 Air’s battery will perform until the device goes on sale in September. Despite its supposedly ultra-thin dimensions, it might still post respectable battery numbers – but all we can do for now is wait for further news and leaks to emerge.

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