The iPhone Air is the result of an obsession with chip efficiency

The iPhone is often held up as an example of globalization because its design and components represent various parts of the world, particularly Cupertino, where Apple has its headquarters in California, China, and India. In the growing category of Apple-made chips, Europe has taken on a growing role over the years thanks to the "European Silicon Design Center" in Munich, where over 2,000 engineers work.

The new iPhone Air, in particular, is the result of efficiency-driven miniaturization efforts made possible by progressively manufacturing microscopic pieces of core technology in-house, particularly processors, reducing the need for external suppliers and encouraging greater integration. This includes the debut of the N1 chip, with advanced Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0, and the C1X, an evolution of the C1, Apple's first in-house modem, which arrived just over six months ago on the iPhone 16e.

In the Munich labs, engineers work primarily on connectivity and 5G, power management, and chip design in isolated chambers where they create extreme conditions and various stress tests involving extreme temperatures and high traffic density. They told us that the transition to the new modem, made necessary by the size of the Air, came about in just a few months, but it took years to build the first one, the C1. The obsession pervading those white rooms and corridors is efficiency: to reduce space and ensure more battery life.

"Much of the work being done here in Munich has been critical to the creation of many of our products, especially these new ones," John Ternus, Apple's Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, explained to Il Sole 24 Ore and several international publications. "This year, we introduced a completely new phone, iPhone Air, which we've wanted to make for a long time, but which required the right technologies and capabilities to make it happen."

The iPhone Air is incredibly thin (5.6 millimeters) and weighs very little (165 grams, compared to the iPhone 17 Pro Max which weighs 240 grams). It has a 6.5-inch display, an excellent compromise between the 6.3-inch Pro and the 6.9-inch Pro Max. It shares the same A19 Pro SoC with the Pro, although the Air has a 5-core GPU compared to the 6-core Pro. It is the pinnacle of this technological effort, paving the way for a new generation of iPhones and, according to rumors, the first foldable phone in the future. According to Apple, the battery life is similar to that of the iPhone 16 Pro.