2800mAh? The iPhone 17 Air might be the iPhone with the worst battery life in Apple's history.

The thinnest iPhone ever houses a battery even smaller than those in phones from nine years ago.

The latest news from the supply chain shows that the upcoming iPhone 17 Air will have a battery capacity of only 2800mAh, even lower than the 2900mAh of the iPhone 7 Plus, which was launched in 2016.

Image source: Internet

This new phone, which pursues extreme thinness and lightness, is only 5.5 millimeters thick, making it the thinnest model in Apple's history. But can such a meager battery capacity really meet daily needs?

Meanwhile, the Android camp has started a "battery life war": The recently released REDMI 80 Ultra Edition is equipped with a 7410mAh battery, and the flagships of Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, and VIVO generally have battery capacities exceeding 6000mAh. It is reported that mid - range models of domestic flagships this year are even trying to challenge battery capacities above 8000mAh.

The Samsung S25 edge, which also focuses on thinness and lightness, has a battery capacity of 3900mAh. Facing users' strong demand for battery life, why is Apple so conservative in terms of battery capacity?

Image source: Unobjective Laboratory

The Ultra - thin Ambition Behind the Battery Shrinkage

The trade - off between the phone's thickness and battery capacity has reached an extreme in the iPhone 17 Air. To achieve the breakthrough 5.5 - millimeter thin and light design, Apple had to significantly compress the internal space, such as removing the physical SIM card slot, reducing the number of camera modules, and using an extremely small battery.

To make up for the shortcoming of the shrunken battery, Apple has adopted multiple strategies.

On the one hand, the iOS 26 system will introduce the "Adaptive Power Mode", which extends battery life by intelligently adjusting performance, reducing brightness, and restricting background activities. Maybe due to the Beta version, anyway, this function is "barely useful" for my current iPhone 16 Pro.

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On the other hand, the iPhone 17 Air will be equipped with the same self - developed communication chip C1 as the iPhone 16e to reduce power consumption under network throughput.

Finally, Apple plans to simultaneously launch a new MagSafe external battery accessory as a physical range - extending solution. It is said that the capacity of the new external battery reaches 4000mAh, and after the iPhone 17 Air is attached to the external battery, the thickness of the phone can still be kept below 9mm.

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However, Apple's internal test data is still not optimistic - "Only 60 - 70% of users can achieve all - day battery life", which is significantly lower than the 80 - 90% compliance rate of other iPhone models. For a device that may cost over a thousand dollars, relying on an external battery to maintain the basic user experience is obviously difficult to satisfy consumers.

Technical Bottlenecks and Material Dilemmas

Facing the silicon - carbon anode battery technology commonly used by domestic Android phone manufacturers, why is Apple hesitating?

Data shows that the silicon - carbon anode battery can theoretically increase the battery's energy density by ten times. If this technology is adopted, the battery capacity of the iPhone 17 Pro Max can easily exceed the 5000mAh mark. But Apple's "hesitation" mainly comes from two major technical obstacles.

The first is the expansion effect caused by silicon materials. During the charging process, silicon atoms will expand like fermented dough, and the volume can increase by up to 400%. Although the carbon - based buffer layer can reduce the expansion rate to a controllable range, it is still much higher than the stable 10% performance of graphite.

For Apple products whose internal space precision can be described as a "work of art", this periodic deformation is like a "breathing effect", which may affect the stability of the motherboard connection in the long run and even cause the back cover and screen to be pushed up by the "bulging" battery.

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Early on, the battery explosion incident of the Samsung Note 7 was mainly caused by the expansion of the battery during use, which squeezed the negative plate of the battery, and the wrong position of the negative terminal led to combustion and damage.

Another important problem is the attenuation of the silicon - carbon anode battery.

The chemical activity of silicon is much higher than that of graphite, which will accelerate the decomposition of the electrolyte and cause the battery capacity to decline rapidly. Currently, most domestic manufacturers only promise a cycle life of about 1000 times for silicon - carbon batteries. After that, the battery needs to be replaced, otherwise, the phone's battery life will decline significantly.

The recently "criticized" Samsung Galaxy Fold 7, although only equipped with a "small battery" of 4400mAh, the official says it can still maintain 80% of the battery capacity after 2000 cycles.

All along, Apple's products have followed the "five - year durability philosophy", which means that the life cycle of a new phone is about five years. This is especially obvious in Mac and iPad products.

If the new battery technology causes users to face serious battery life attenuation within 1 - 2 years, considering that Apple's official battery replacement fee is as high as hundreds of dollars, it seriously does not meet Apple's definition of product "durability" and will inevitably cause large - scale dissatisfaction among users.

The Exaggerated Costs Caused by Global Transportation

Behind Apple's battery decisions, there is also a little - known international rule restriction, which is Special Provision 188 of the United Nations "Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods".

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According to the regulations of the United Nations "Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods", lithium batteries belong to Class 9 dangerous goods. However, during sea transportation, if the batteries and battery packs to be transported meet the following requirements, they are not subject to other regulations of this regulation and can be transported as general cargo:

(a) For lithium - metal batteries or lithium - alloy batteries, the lithium content does not exceed 1 gram; for lithium - ion batteries, the watt - hour rating does not exceed 20Wh;

(b) For lithium - metal or lithium - alloy battery packs, the total lithium content does not exceed 2 grams; for lithium - ion battery packs, the watt - hour rating does not exceed 100Wh.

This rule sets 20Wh as the critical threshold. If a single - cell product is below this value, it can enjoy a simplified transportation process. Once it exceeds this value, it is classified as a "dangerous good", requiring special packaging, separate declaration, and is prohibited from being transported on passenger planes. As a result, the logistics cost will soar by more than 30%.

In recent Apple product launches, Apple has always used "environmental protection" as an excuse to cut accessories such as chargers in the packaging box to reduce the packaging size of the iPhone. In fact, the fundamental purpose is to reduce the transportation cost of the iPhone so that more products can be transported in the same - volume cargo container.

It is obvious that Apple does not want the hard - earned profits to be diluted by logistics costs.

Therefore, Apple, which is good at supply - chain management, precisely sets the battery energy at the edge of the red line. The battery capacity of the iPhone 16 Pro Max, which currently has the largest battery capacity, is about 18.17Wh when converted. If an iPhone is equipped with a 6000mAh battery (about 23.28 watt - hours calculated at a voltage of 3.88V) like domestic flagship phones, then the transportation cost of Apple's more than 200 million iPhones worldwide each year will increase by hundreds of millions of dollars.

In contrast, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, and VIVO, whose main battlefield is in China, are less affected due to their limited international shipments.

But this does not mean that Apple has no considerations in its battery strategy. On the iPhone 16 Pro, Apple introduced the "steel - shell battery technology" for the first time to replace the traditional aluminum - plastic film packaging.

In addition to increasing impact resistance and optimizing heat dissipation performance, the design of the steel - shell battery can also effectively restrain the expansion of silicon - carbon materials, better maintain the electrode structure, and extend the battery's cycle life. This lays a foundation for Apple to adopt high - energy - density batteries in the future.

Supply - chain news reveals that Apple is testing a silicon - carbon battery solution for the iPhone 17 Pro Max, and the capacity may exceed 5000mAh. Perhaps in an unknown "secret laboratory", Apple's engineers have developed unknown new technologies to optimize battery life, which can take into account multiple factors such as battery life and cost.

But obviously, on the upcoming iPhone 17 Air, users still need to endure the "abysmal" battery life brought by the small battery, reminiscent of the era of the iPhone 12 mini. If you want to get this "thin and light iPhone" in the second half of this year, you still need to be mentally prepared for "charging three times a day".

This article is from the WeChat public account "Unobjective Laboratory", author: Lu. Republished by 36Kr with permission.