In May, we heard a disappointing rumor from Apple analyst Jeff Pu. He suggested the company will reuse its Apple A18 silicon for the upcoming iPhone 17. However, he has now retracted the previous statement and claims that both iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Air are actually going to feature the Apple A19 this year.
Sadly, he also had to take back the previous claim regarding the RAM upgrade for the base variant. It would appear that Apple wants to stick with 8GB LPDDR5 RAM for this year’s rollout as well. The leaker says that the 12GB memory will instead go to the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max.
The iPhone 17 Air could also offer 12GB RAM, but it remains to be seen whether it uses the LPDDR5 or the faster LPDDR5X standard. There are rumors that Apple is working on its very own WiFi 7 chip, and this could be used on all the variants in the lineup.
There are some other changes in the series as well, like the fact that the Apple iPhone latest model is getting a bigger 6.3” XDR super Retina OLED this time. Not only did they change the size, but the refresh rate is also reported as 120Hz instead of 60Hz.
The only caveat to this high refresh rate is that it doesn’t step down while using it. This is not an LTPO variety panel, which Apple calls ProMotion. It’s rather a run-of-the-mill 120Hz panel that keeps itself locked to a certain frequency and could hit the battery hard.
Of course, the Pro series will maintain the ProMotion 120Hz, and it could possibly be borrowed by the iPhone 17 Air as well, as it desperately needs the energy-efficient hardware. We already know that the Air has a very small 2800mAh battery.
Apple also accidentally leaked the display resolution of the iPhone 17 Air, which proved that it’s bigger than the basic iPhone 17 and smaller than the Pro Max. Jeff Pu’s leaks usually pan out, so we look forward to these changes on the iPhone 17 series. There’s still some time before the official unveiling, so stay tuned for more updates.