Unconfirmed: a Korean leaker says iPhone Air 2 will be about 5.2mm thin, the same as an unfolded iPhone DuoUnconfirmed: a Korean leaker says iPhone Air 2 will be about 5.2mm thin, the same as an unfolded iPhone Duo

A Korean blogger claims Apple's iPhone Air 2 will be about 0.4mm thinner than the current iPhone Air, despite carrying a bigger battery.

The claim comes from yeux1122, an account on the Naver blog platform, and was reported by MacRumors on 8 October. In the terms we use for leaks it is Unverified: an anonymous account, no documents or images shown, and no second source. Nothing corroborates it. Apple has said nothing about an iPhone Air 2.

What the claim says

Apple lists the iPhone Air at 5.64mm thick and 165 grams. Taking 0.4mm off gives roughly 5.2mm, a reduction of about 7 per cent. MacRumors notes that this would match the iPhone Duo, which Apple lists at 5.2mm unfolded and 11.3mm folded, at 254 grams.

The blogger also says the thinner phone has a larger battery. MacRumors links that to an earlier rumour of a 3,500mAh battery, against 3,149mAh in the current model, an increase of around 11 per cent. Apple does not publish battery capacities; it rates the iPhone Air at up to 27 hours of video playback. MacRumors says the iPhone Air 2 is expected early next year, alongside the iPhone 18 and iPhone 18e.

How reliable is yeux1122?

Mixed, by the reckoning of the outlets that follow it. 9to5Mac, writing the same day about the account's separate claim on the iPad mini's display, describes its record on Apple as very mixed and says it often seems to repeat what unnamed sources tell it rather than find things itself. MacRumors calls the account hit-and-miss. We found nobody who has independently confirmed the iPhone Air 2 figure.

Our take

The direction is believable and the number is not proven. Apple has already built a phone that is 5.2mm thick in the unfolded iPhone Duo, which shows it has the parts. But the Duo spreads its components across two halves, and a slab phone has to fit everything behind one screen. Getting thinner and gaining roughly a tenth more battery at the same time would need denser battery cells or a different internal layout, and the claim explains neither. If one half is true, the other may not be.

There is also a question of what the iPhone Air is for. Its thinness was its whole argument, and battery life was the obvious price of it. A 0.4mm cut is invisible in the hand; a bigger battery is not. APPDOOK would read a battery increase as the more plausible half of this rumour, and the more useful one if it turns out to be true.

Next to the folding phone, the Air sits in an odd spot. Our comparison of the iPhone Duo and the iPhone 18 Pro Max found the Duo the thinner device open and much the heavier. An Air that matches the Duo's open thickness at around two thirds of its weight would make a clearer case for itself. What would firm this up is the usual trail before a launch: case makers' dummies, regulatory filings, or a second, named source. Until then it is one blogger's claim.