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Analysts: Slim iPhone Air Could be a Design Win for Apple

iPhones on display during Apple's event at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California, US September 9, 2025. REUTERS/Manuel Orbegozo
iPhones on display during Apple's event at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California, US September 9, 2025. REUTERS/Manuel Orbegozo
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Analysts: Slim iPhone Air Could be a Design Win for Apple

iPhones on display during Apple's event at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California, US September 9, 2025. REUTERS/Manuel Orbegozo
iPhones on display during Apple's event at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California, US September 9, 2025. REUTERS/Manuel Orbegozo

Apple CEO Tim Cook seemed to be channeling predecessor and design genius Steve Jobs on Tuesday when he unveiled the iPhone Air, the company's slimmest handset yet and the biggest change in eight years to a lineup fans and analysts saw as stagnating.

Cook kicked off the company's annual product launch event at its Cupertino, California, headquarters with a Jobs quote: "For us, design goes beyond just how something looks or feels. Design is also how it works."

Inside its 5.6-mm (0.22-inch) -slim frame, thinner than Samsung Electronics' S25 Edge at 5.8 mm, the iPhone Air's circuitry has been shrunk to the size of a few postage stamps, to deliver on Apple's claim of "all-day battery life.”

Many analysts had predicted a ho-hum reception ahead of the event, but some said on Tuesday the four new iPhones - Air, 17, 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max - were a lineup likely to appeal to customers with varied budgets.

And doubts still linger about whether the new smartphone will match its promised battery capacity, and whether consumers will settle for one camera fewer.

It will incorporate Apple's best and newest A19 Pro processor chip, tuned for artificial intelligence tasks, and two new custom communications chips.

"I heard loud claps the moment it was announced," said Gaurav Chaudhary, a YouTuber with nearly 24 million followers, popularly known as "Technical Guruji."

He praised the Air's titanium frame and "ceramic shield" glass, which Apple said make the device more durable.

According to Reuters, Chaudhary said that despite hearing numerous leaks about the device ahead of time, he was still impressed after handling it in the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple headquarters, even if he still wants to see if Apple's battery life claims hold up.

Seventeen years ago, Jobs famously introduced the company's first MacBook Air by pulling the ultra-thin laptop from an interoffice envelope, to highlight how portable it was.

The iPhone Air, which borrows its name and design language from the laptop, may be what Apple fans have wanted for years: A device that distinct from competitors packed with feats of hardware engineering.

"I think in an era where we've seen a large degree of sameness, it's great to see Apple bring a new product to the market," said PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore. "It kind of reinvigorates the whole segment of iPhone."

On the downside, however, the iPhone Air has only one camera, compared with two separate cameras on the base iPhone 17 and three on the Pro models.

Ben Bajarin, CEO of technology consultancy Creative Strategies, said it will also be critical to confirm whether it can live up to Apple's battery life claims.

He said Apple's custom chips should help, as the company has spent more than a decade designing its own chips with a relentless focus on energy efficiency and size.

The launches brought no news, however, of artificial intelligence features to help Apple close the gap with the likes of Alphabet's Google, which showcases the capabilities of its Gemini AI technology in its latest flagship phones.

But analysts said the iPhone Air, especially, was likely to spur many upgrades, boosting Apple's sales in the crucial holiday shopping season.

It could also help Apple win back customers in China, where it has lost market share to the slimmer and cheaper smartphones of rivals, analysts said, though some cautioned about sales prospects there for the new iPhone Air.

"We don’t expect the iPhone Air to deliver a major sales boost, as Apple compromised on battery life, cameras, and audio to achieve the slimmer design, features crucial to consumers," said Will Wong, senior smartphone analyst at research firm IDC.

The iPhone Air is priced in the middle of the iPhone lineup and at $100 less than the debut price of Samsung's Galaxy S25 Edge, which hit markets this year and shipped 1 million units in the second quarter, IDC says.

The price should make it a strong seller, said Nabila Popal, senior research director with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker unit.

Popal predicted better sales for the iPhone Air, "not only because it's priced better, but because the (iPhone) Plus - which essentially the Air is replacing - already did between 5% and 7% of Apple's shipments.

"Apple's late, but when they do it, they do it bigger or louder or better than anyone," Popal said.

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Technology

New Process for Stable, Long-Lasting Batteries

The image shows a test cell used to fabricate and test the all-solid-state battery developed at PSI. (Paul Scherrer Institute PSI/Mahir Dzambegovic) 
The image shows a test cell used to fabricate and test the all-solid-state battery developed at PSI. (Paul Scherrer Institute PSI/Mahir Dzambegovic) 
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New Process for Stable, Long-Lasting Batteries

The image shows a test cell used to fabricate and test the all-solid-state battery developed at PSI. (Paul Scherrer Institute PSI/Mahir Dzambegovic) 
The image shows a test cell used to fabricate and test the all-solid-state battery developed at PSI. (Paul Scherrer Institute PSI/Mahir Dzambegovic) 

Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have achieved a breakthrough on the path to practical application of lithium metal all-solid-state batteries.

The team expects the next generation of batteries to store more energy, are safer to operate, and charge faster than conventional lithium-ion batteries.

The team has reported these results in the journal Advanced Science.

All-solid-state batteries are considered a promising solution for electromobility, mobile electronics, and stationary energy storage – in part because they do not require flammable liquid electrolytes and therefore are inherently safer than conventional lithium-ion batteries.

Two key problems, however, stand in the way of market readiness: On the one hand, the formation of lithium dendrites at the anode remains a critical point.

On the other hand, an electrochemical instability – at the interface between the lithium metal anode and the solid electrolyte – can impair the battery’s long-term performance and reliability.

To overcome these two obstacles, the team led by Mario El Kazzi, head of the Battery Materials and Diagnostics group at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, developed a new production process:

“We combined two approaches that, together, both densify the electrolyte and stabilize the interface with the lithium,” the scientist explained.

Central to the PSI study is the argyrodite type LPSCl, a sulphide-based solid electrolyte made of lithium, phosphorus, and sulphur. The mineral exhibits high lithium-ion conductivity, enabling rapid ion transport within the battery – a crucial prerequisite for high performance and efficient charging processes.

To densify argyrodite into a homogeneous electrolyte, El Kazzi and his team did incorporate the temperature factor, but in a more careful way: Instead of the classic sintering process, they chose a gentler approach in which the mineral was compressed under moderate pressure and at a moderate temperature of only about 80 degrees Celsius.

The result is a compact, dense microstructure resistant to the penetration of lithium dendrites. Already, in this form, the solid electrolyte is ideally suited for rapid lithium-ion transport.

To ensure reliable operation even at high current densities, such as those encountered during rapid charging and discharging, the all-solid-state cell required further modification.

For this purpose, a coating of lithium fluoride (LiF), only 65 nanometres thick, was evaporated under vacuum and applied uniformly to the lithium surface – serving as a ultra-thin passivation layer at the interface between the anode and the solid electrolyte.

In laboratory tests with button cells, the battery demonstrated extraordinary performance under demanding conditions.

“Its cycle stability at high voltage was remarkable,” said doctoral candidate Jinsong Zhang, lead author of the study.

After 1,500 charge and discharge cycles, the cell still retained approximately 75% of its original capacity.

This means that three-quarters of the lithium ions were still migrating from the cathode to the anode. “An outstanding result. These values are among the best reported to date.”

Zhang therefore sees a good chance that all-solid-state batteries could soon surpass conventional lithium-ion batteries with liquid electrolyte in terms of energy density and durability.

Thus El Kazzi and his team have demonstrated for the first time that the combination of solid electrolyte mild sintering and a thin passivation layer on lithium anode effectively suppresses both dendrite formation and interfacial instability.

This combined solution marks an important advance for all-solid-state battery research – not least because it offers ecological and economic advantages: Due to the low temperatures, the process saves energy and therefore costs.

“Our approach is a practical solution for the industrial production of argyrodite-based all-solid-state batteries,” said El Kazzi. “A few more adjustments – and we could get started.”

Technology

Meta Urges Australia to Change Teen Social Media Ban

Meta has called for Australia's social media for under-16s to target app stores. Saeed KHAN / AFP
Meta has called for Australia's social media for under-16s to target app stores. Saeed KHAN / AFP
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Meta Urges Australia to Change Teen Social Media Ban

Meta has called for Australia's social media for under-16s to target app stores. Saeed KHAN / AFP
Meta has called for Australia's social media for under-16s to target app stores. Saeed KHAN / AFP

Tech giant Meta urged Australia on Monday to rethink its world-first social media ban for under-16s, while reporting that it has blocked more than 544,000 accounts under the new law.

Australia has required big platforms including Meta, TikTok and YouTube to stop underage users from holding accounts since the legislation came into force on December 10 last year.

Companies face fines of Aus $49.5 million (US$33 million) if they fail to take "reasonable steps" to comply.

Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg's Meta said it had removed 331,000 underage accounts from Instagram, 173,000 from Facebook, and 40,000 from Threads in the week to December 11.

The company said it was committed to complying with the law.

"That said, we call on the Australian government to engage with industry constructively to find a better way forward, such as incentivizing all of industry to raise the standard in providing safe, privacy-preserving, age appropriate experiences online, instead of blanket bans," it said in statement.

Meta renewed an earlier call for app stores to be required to verify people's ages and get parental approval before under-16s can download an app.

This was the only way to avoid a "whack-a-mole" race to stop teens migrating to new apps to avoid the ban, the company said.

The government said it was holding social media companies to account for the harm they cause young Australians.

"Platforms like Meta collect a huge amount of data on their users for commercial purposes. They can and must use that information to comply with Australian law and ensure people under 16 are not on their platforms," a government spokesperson said.

Meta said parents and experts were worried about the ban isolating young people from online communities, and driving some to less regulated apps and darker corners of the internet.

Initial impacts of the legislation "suggest it is not meeting its objectives of increasing the safety and well-being of young Australians", it said.

While raising concern over the lack of an industry standard for determining age online, Meta said its compliance with the Australian law would be a "multilayered process".

Since the ban, the California-based firm said it had helped found the OpenAge Initiative, a non-profit group that has launched age-verification tools called AgeKeys to be used with participating platforms.

Technology

China Is Closing in on US Technology Lead Despite Constraints, AI Researchers Say

Visitors look at robots on display at robotics company Unitree's first retail store in Beijing in January 9, 2026. (AFP)
Visitors look at robots on display at robotics company Unitree's first retail store in Beijing in January 9, 2026. (AFP)
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China Is Closing in on US Technology Lead Despite Constraints, AI Researchers Say

Visitors look at robots on display at robotics company Unitree's first retail store in Beijing in January 9, 2026. (AFP)
Visitors look at robots on display at robotics company Unitree's first retail store in Beijing in January 9, 2026. (AFP)

China can narrow its technological gap with the US driven by growing risk-taking and innovation, though the lack of advanced chipmaking tools is hobbling the sector, the country's leading artificial intelligence researchers said on Saturday.

China's so-called "AI tiger" startups MiniMax and Zhipu AI had strong debuts on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange this week, reflecting growing confidence in the sector as Beijing fast-tracks AI and chip listings to bolster domestic alternatives to advanced US technology.

Yao Shunyu, a former senior researcher at ChatGPT maker OpenAI ‌who was named ‌technology giant Tencent's chief AI scientist in December, ‌said ⁠there was a ‌high likelihood of a Chinese firm becoming the world's leading AI company in the next three to five years but said the lack of advanced chipmaking machines was the main technical hurdle.

"Currently, we have a significant advantage in electricity and infrastructure. The main bottlenecks are production capacity, including lithography machines, and the software ecosystem," Yao said at an AI conference in Beijing.

China has completed a working prototype of an extreme-ultraviolet lithography ⁠machine potentially capable of producing cutting-edge semiconductor chips that rival the West's, Reuters reported last month. However, the ‌machine has not yet produced working chips and may ‍not do so until 2030, people with ‍knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

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Yao and other ‍Chinese industry leaders at the Beijing conference on Saturday also acknowledged that the US maintains an advantage in computing power due to its hefty investments in infrastructure.

"The US computer infrastructure is likely one to two orders of magnitude larger than ours. But I see that whether it's OpenAI or other platforms, they're investing heavily in next-generation research," said Lin Junyang, technical lead for Alibaba's flagship Qwen large language model.

"We, ⁠on the other hand, are relatively strapped for cash; delivery alone likely consumes the majority of our computer infrastructure," Lin said during a panel discussion at the AGI-Next Frontier Summit held by the Beijing Key Laboratory of Foundational Models at Tsinghua University.

Lin said China's limited resources have spurred its researchers to be innovative, particularly through algorithm-hardware co-design, which enables AI firms to run large models on smaller, inexpensive hardware.

Tang Jie, founder of Zhipu AI which raised HK$4.35 billion in its IPO, also highlighted the willingness of younger Chinese AI entrepreneurs to embrace high-risk ventures - a trait traditionally associated with Silicon Valley - as a positive development.

"I think if we can improve this environment, ‌allowing more time for these risk-taking, intelligent individuals to engage in innovative endeavors ... this is something our government and the country can help improve," said Tang.