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Next year, Apple will release an ultra-thin smartphone, the iPhone 17 Slim (according to other sources, Air), rumors about the preparation of which have been circulating for several months. The magazine has released fresh information about the future product, which, according to informed sources, is still in the prototype stage. The site also told about other smartphones in the iPhone 17 series.
The main feature of the iPhone 17 Slim should be its minimal thickness. It is reported that the prototypes are 5 to 6 mm. Apple’s thinnest smartphone of all time, the iPhone 6, has a thickness of 6.9 mm, while the iPhone 6 Plus is 7.1 mm. Apple’s thinnest devices in general were the iPad Pro, introduced earlier this year. The thickness of the 11-inch tablet is only 5.4 mm, and the 13-inch version is only 5.1 mm.
According to the source, Apple engineers faced a number of challenges in order to make the smartphone as thin as possible. In particular, difficulties arose with the placement of the battery and thermal insulation materials in the device body. Due to the ultra-thin design, they had to agree to install a single speaker instead of two, as in current models of the iPhone. The iPhone 17 Slim will also have a single camera on the back, which will be placed on a “large central protrusion.”
But these are not all the compromises. According to the source, the iPhone 17 Slim will be “one of the first iPhones” to use Apple’s built-in 5G modem, which does not have support for millimeter wave frequencies (mmWave). It is also reported that at the moment Apple’s modem cannot yet be compared in data transfer speed with Qualcomm solutions that Apple currently uses, but at the same time it is more energy efficient.
And finally, according to The Information, Apple engineers have not yet found a way to install a physical SIM card tray in the iPhone 17 Slim. In the US, iPhones have been without physical cards for two generations, using only eSIM cards, but in some countries this is not possible. For example, the SIM card tray is still relevant for smartphones sold in China.
The Information also reported that the iPhone 17 series smartphones will have significant design changes compared to their predecessors, especially the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max models. For example, all models in the new family will have an aluminum frame - now regular iPhones use stainless steel, while the iPhone Pro uses titanium.
In addition, the back panel of the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max models will be made of aluminum and glass. The upper part will have a larger rectangular camera, which is made of aluminum, rather than 3D glass, and the lower half of the panel will be glass for wireless charging.
