I finally get the iPhone Air

I saw a lot of weird phones at Mobile World Congress last month: robot phones, cameras disguised as phones, phones for dogs. But the one that caught me most off guard was the one my friend (and Verge alum) Sam Byford brought to dinner: an iPhone Air.

“Ha!” I said. “You actually use that thing?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s great.” That’s when he pulled out a second phone — the Xiaomi Leica Leitzphone, which he was using alongside it.

Got it, I said. The trick to enjoying the iPhone Air is to simply have another, much better phone on your person at all times. I found this very funny and recounted the anecdote to anyone who would listen. But friends, I come to you with a confession. I think Sam is right: The iPhone Air might actually be good.

In fairness, I never really thought it was bad bad. I gave it a 7 when I reviewed it last year. The benefits of its slim profile and light weight are easy to understand, and it really does leave an impression when you hold it for yourself. But a phone with worse battery life, a single rear camera, and one measly speaker? For the same price as a regular phone? I kind of wrote it off as a weird thing that happened on the way to the Apple folding phone.

I picked up my iPhone Air review unit again after MWC when I needed to compare its camera to the 17E’s. After the 17E review, I swapped my eSIM to the Air to see if using it for a longer period of time told me anything new. I figured I’d get tired of it after a week or so, but I didn’t. I kinda got hooked.

It helps that I’m not doing any traveling right now, and I’m very rarely away from a charger for an extended period of time. My soft-pants, remote-work lifestyle is very forgiving to a phone with weak battery life. Even so, it lasted through a lengthy excursion out of the house last week. I definitely plugged it in for a recharge when I got back home, since battery percentage was hovering just above 20 percent and I’m allergic to low power mode.

It’s no accident at all that when Apple loaned me the Air to review it also sent the super-slim MagSafe battery pack to go with it. I’ve been putting it to use while I revisit the Air, and not only as an insurance policy when I go out; sometimes it’s nice to have so I can top off the battery while I’m using it around the house without having to tether myself to a wall charger. That got me thinking: Maybe MagSafe is the thing here.

One of my own personal hang-ups with the Air is its screen size. It’s a slim phone, not a small phone, and I still find it a pain to use one-handed. But what if I just pop on a magnetic ring grip when I’m settling in to do some real scrolling? I started leaving one on a side table next to the couch to have it handy for such occasions. When I’m done it comes off the phone; the Air stays just as light and pocketable as ever.

I also started using a MagSafe wallet with the Air. I like the idea of a wallet on the back of my phone, but I usually find them too bulky, even without a case on whatever phone I’m using. But since the Air is so slim to start with, I don’t mind the added bulk of the wallet. It’s a pretty handy way to carry a couple of essential cards when I’m running out of the house for a quick errand, and when I’m back home I can just plop it onto the key tray.

You could even use MagSafe as a solution for one of the Air’s other weak points: the crummy speaker. I mean, AirPods exist, for starters, which is usually good enough for me. But if you really wanted to go in on the modularity aspect, you could pick up a MagSafe Bluetooth speaker to thwack onto the back. Suddenly, this isn’t just the weird skinny iPhone with the bad battery anymore. It’s a modular phone.

I think the toughest thing to overcome on the iPhone Air is its camera. Unless Apple plans to release a Vivo-style camera lens system that can transform the Air’s rear camera into an actual telephoto when you need it, you’re stuck with a basically fine wide-angle lens and a little 2x crop zoom in a pinch. But more people these days are fine carrying a point-and-shoot camera in addition to their phone anyway. So if you were never very fond of the iPhone camera look, maybe the Air can be your excuse to bring a dedicated camera more often. Personally, I find the built-in camera options good enough that I just put up with it. But I’d be seriously tempted to try adding an ultrawide adapter if I was going to extend this experiment any longer.

I still think that the iPhone Air is impractical for most people. You know, people who don’t carry two phones, or get excited when they hear the words “Moto Mods.” The battery is only going to get worse over time, and maybe the modularity theory would start to get old after a year of managing a small stable of accessories. I can see the novelty wearing off. As for me, my time with the Air is over for now and I’m back on the 17 Pro. Is it nice having three actual rear cameras to choose from? And not worrying about the battery lasting a full day? It is. But I miss the iPhone Air more than I thought I would. And if it does end up being a weird side quest on the way to a folding iPhone, then at least it was an entertaining one.