These six iOS 26 hints all but confirm the iPhone 17 Air

Last month, Apple released the iOS 26 developer beta, letting testers try out upcoming features before the OS launches this fall. As expected, the early code references unreleased Apple products, such as what appears to be the AirTag 2 and AirPods Pro 3.

That’s not all! A closer look at iOS 26’s user-facing changes suggests that an iPhone 17 Air is coming later this year.

Liquid Glass design

Apple has long envisioned its ideal smartphone to resemble a sleek glass slab; it would do away with the screen bezels and visible sensor cutouts. While the iPhone 17 Air won’t adopt this flawless look, it is expected to initiate the next significant hardware evolution. 

For starters, the ultra-thin iPhone could be only 5.5mm thick. This would crown it as the slimmest iPhone yet—and potentially the lightest. Hardware changes on their own, however, are not sufficient to execute a truly elegant look.

iOS 26 will power the iPhone 17 Air out of the box, and the operating system’s fresh user interface is prepared for the big moment. Liquid Glass is Apple’s latest design language and OS 26’s most notable highlight. As its name suggests, the UI now mimics flexible glass material that heavily relies on translucency and refraction.

Liquid Glass is visible across the entire system, including the Lock Screen, app icons, widgets, alerts, notifications, menus, navigation bars, and more. Despite it being a first developer beta, interacting with it has made my iPhone feel more modern than ever, and it’ll only get more fluid with the next builds.

Paired with the iPhone 17 Air’s rumored form factor, Liquid Glass is bound to make the experience seem more futuristic.

Simplified Camera app

Another design change that hints at an Air iPhone 17 variant is the revamped Camera app. With iOS 26, Apple has hidden most of the shooting modes and options to simplify the increasingly cramped layout. The iPhone 17 Air will reportedly launch with a single rear lens, and, naturally, it’ll miss out on some of the camera features offered by the higher-end iPhone models—such as spatial and ProRes recording.

Most iPhone 17 Air customers will likely use the camera to shoot regular, everyday photos and videos. It’s not meant to match the Pro iPhone camera system’s superior quality and perks. And that’s exactly what iOS 26’s overhauled Camera app presents—the basic photo and video capturing modes.

Adaptive Power Mode

One of the main drawbacks with extra-slim smartphones is their smaller batteries, and the iPhone 17 Air will likely be no different. While iOS is a relatively energy-efficient OS, dropping the battery’s capacity, as one might expect, will decrease the usage time. To mitigate its impact, iOS 26 brings an all-new Adaptive Power Mode that aims to increase battery life.

For those unfamiliar, the traditional Low Power Mode throttles your iPhone’s performance and kills certain background activities to save energy. It’s too irritating to keep on at all times, as the iPhone’s sluggishness becomes quickly noticeable. On the other hand, Adaptive Power Mode makes smaller adjustments to your iPhone’s performance based on how you use it. Its impact is supposedly subtler, making it a viable option to keep on at all times.

Battery Intelligence

Given the shorter battery life, 17 Air users might need to charge their iPhones more than once a day. To make the charging cycle more predictable, iOS 26 introduces a long-overdue feature dubbed Battery Intelligence. It presents the estimated charging duration to reach 80% (then 100%) when connected to a charger. This will simplify planning and help users avoid going out before their batteries are fully charged.

Easier mic selection

Other potential iPhone 17 Air shortcomings will include fewer hardware components. Beyond the missing ultra-wide and telephoto lenses, the ultra-slim phone could pack inferior speakers and microphones. Fortunately, iOS 26 makes it easier to rely on AirPods as dedicated microphones and switch between different audio input devices. This will help casual content creators bypass the built-in mics and shoot videos that don’t necessarily sound muffled.

Flexible apps

Lastly, the iOS 26 SDK supports flexible app UIs that automatically adapt to new screen sizes. When Apple launches fresh hardware with unique dimensions, third-party apps will no longer get letterboxed. Instead, the system will optimize their windows to match the new displays by default. While this change could primarily be preparing for foldable iDevices, the iPhone 17 Air will reportedly launch a new 6.6-inch size. So, apps updated for iOS 26 should look great on day one—even if the devs haven’t specifically built them for the iPhone 17 Air.

A new interface for a new era

Apple’s unprecedented jump from iOS 18 to iOS 26 isn’t merely to streamline its operating systems’ version numbers. It’s also to mark the major shift in its software design and philosophy. iOS 26’s Liquid Glass interface kickstarts the next iPhone chapter—an era dominated by devices that will only get sleeker and more powerful. The new battery management tools also help users escape the consequences of basic physics and prepare for even more compact gadgets, like the Apple Glasses, aka Apple Vision Air.