‘Apple will grit its teeth and push through’ — new report suggests the iPhone Air 2 isn’t dead, and I sincerely hope it’s true
But there are big reasons to doubt it…
by https://www.techradar.com/uk/author/axel-metz · TechRadarFeatures By Axel Metz published 10 April 2026
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It’s no secret that the iPhone Air isn’t selling as well as Apple hoped (one October report suggested there was "virtually no consumer demand" for the device), but there might still be some life left in Apple’s super slim iPhone project.
According to a recent Weibo post from Chinese leaker Fixed Focus Digital, Apple still plans to release an iPhone Air 2 “no matter how badly it sells,” adding that the company “will grit its teeth and push through with at least two generations.”
There are several very big reasons to doubt this claim — I’ll walk you through them below — but I, for one, am all in favor of a sequel to what is undeniably Apple’s most exciting iPhone in years.
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But let’s start with the skepticism. First, our translation of the Weibo post may have lost some of the original’s nuance. It begins by saying “the Air 2 will continue to be iterated as usual,” but “iterated” in this instance may not mean “released”, and “iterated” may not even be the exact translation of the original Chinese (MacRumors, for instance, translated part of the post as “no matter how abysmal the sales turn out to be”, which is slightly different to our translation of the same line). If you speak fluent Chinese, please correct us in the comments.
Secondly, all (most) signs point towards Apple releasing an iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and a foldable iPhone Ultra in September. The big leakers haven’t mentioned the iPhone Air 2 by name as yet, and Apple’s March 2027 event will likely focus on its next non-Pro models, namely the iPhone 18 and iPhone 18e.
The iPhone Air 2 would be a bona fide premium iPhone, and so it’s not suitable for launch alongside those two more affordable models, and it seems unlikely that Apple would stuff its next September event with four new and very different iPhones (the aforementioned Weibo post doesn’t actually specify September as the iPhone Air 2’s release month, but we can infer as much from the phrase “iterated as usual”).
Thirdly, Apple is not a company that typically “grits its teeth” to bring an unprofitable product to market. I recently penned an op-ed on Tim Cook’s methodical and self-confessed ‘ruthless’ approach to running the company, and if indeed the iPhone Air is selling poorly, a Hail Mary-style release of the iPhone Air 2 would totally jar with the predictability (and subsequent profitability) we’ve come to associate with Apple.
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