WSJ Report on the iPhone Air Pegs It as a ‘Flop’

Rolfe Winkler and Yang Jie, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (gift link, News+ link) under the headline “Apple’s iPhone Air Is a Marketing Win and a Sales Flop” (which headline, going from the web page <title> element, was originally the less sensational “Apple’s iPhone Air Sales Disappoint”):

Jason Purdy wanted to like his new iPhone Air.

Raised in Apple’s hometown of Cupertino, Calif., and later an Apple senior product manager, Purdy said he loves to see innovative product design from tech companies. So he made an Apple store appointment to buy the new, ultrathin smartphone the day it went on sale.

Within a month, he returned it.

He found it hard to have speakerphone calls and listen to music. And the photos he took at his early October wedding came out noticeably worse than ones his brother took on a new iPhone 17 Pro.

“The performance wasn’t quite there. Across the board they’re sacrificing all these things,” said Purdy. The Air was very pleasurable to hold and impressed his friends, but didn’t work as his primary device, he said.

That’s a brutally unfair lede to this story without showing the photos. If Purdy’s brother’s photos (taken with an iPhone 17 Pro) were all taken with the telephoto 4× lens, and all of Purdy’s photos (taken with an iPhone Air) were from telephoto distance and he relied on digital zoom, then yes, his photos from the Air surely did look noticeably worse. But the lone (1×) camera on the Air is very good. It’s not as good as the main 1× camera on the iPhone 17 Pro, but it’s close enough that in most people’s hands, the difference isn’t perceptible. And between comparably talented amateur photographers, someone using an iPhone Air at a wedding, and using their feet to “zoom” by getting close to the subjects of their photos, will take way better pictures than someone shooting from across the room using the iPhone 17 Pro’s telephoto 4× lens. When it comes to optical quality, the Air’s 1× lone camera is obviously superior to the 17 Pro’s telephoto.

Saying that “the photos ... came out noticeably worse” with no explanation of what type of photos they were, let alone, you know, actually showing example images, is just a dirty trick. There are numerous valid reasons why someone might prefer a 17 Pro to an Air for photography, but what the Journal describes regarding this guy Purdy and his brother doesn’t describe such a situation. Someone who just wants to shoot some nice photos at a family gathering like a wedding can get terrific results from an iPhone Air. Show me someone who says the iPhone Air is a poor camera and I’ll show you a terrible photographer who doesn’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.

The Air is billed as Apple’s thinnest smartphone yet.

It is Apple’s thinnest smartphone yet. You can measure it.

★ Thursday, 13 November 2025