Summary

Gruber delivers a delayed review of the iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro — about a year late due to a personal hiatus — and frames the lateness as an interesting vantage point, just before both are superseded. He declares the Air the 'nicest' device Apple has ever made but explains he personally bought the 17 Pro because the Air's single size is too wide for comfortable one-handed use. He addresses the Air's feared weaknesses — battery life and single-camera system — and largely dismisses both as non-issues in practice. The 17 Pro earns the label 'best' phone Apple has ever made, with particular praise for the full-width camera plateau design, Ceramic Shield 2 durability, and camera quality. Both phones, he concludes, still feel fresh a year on.

Key Insight

The Air and the Pro serve genuinely different people — not better vs. worse, but nicest vs. best — and the Air's single size is its only real flaw, one that kept even its biggest admirer from buying it.

Spicy Quotes (click to share)

• 7

  The iPhone Air is the nicest phone Apple has ever made, and probably the nicest device Apple has ever made, period. It's just so goddamn nice.

• 6

  The iPhone 17 Pro is the best phone Apple has ever made, and perhaps the best device Apple has ever made, period.

• 3

  There's something mentally freeing about having just one lens. There's no question which lens you should use.

• 4

  After 10+ months of near-daily use, the anodization is beginning to wear away at the top corner of my iPhone's camera plateau, where there's a bit of a sharp corner. I find this to be a charming patina, not a flaw, and looking at that wear increases my affection for this little guy.

• 5

  One year later and it feels like both the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air could be announced tomorrow, not a year ago, and would seem fresh and exciting.

• 3

  If the iPhone Air came in two sizes, regular and Max, corresponding to the widths and heights of the two Pro sizes, I would have bought the regular-sized Air model and, I'm convinced, been delighted with it for the past year.

• 5

  I look forward to a future hermetically sealed iPhone which has no crevices in which to accumulate crud.

Tone

reflective, opinionated, personal