Macworld Podcast: The latest on the iPhone 17 Air

As September approaches, the iPhone rumors are popping up more frequently. What’s different this year is that it looks like Apple is going to introduce a brand new iPhone model that’s being dubbed the iPhone 17 Air—that’s not the official name. We talk about this new phone on the show.

This is episode 945 with Jason Cross, Michael Simon, and Roman Loyola. 

Get info 

Click on the links below for more information on what was discussed on the show. 
 

• iPhone 17: Specs, colors, release date, and everything else we know 

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These are the reader, listener, and viewer comments we discussed on the show.

AirPods audio upgrade comparison

Apple claims that its xOS 26 updates will allow for studio-quality recordings with the AirPods 4, AirPods  Pro 2–essentially any AirPods with an H2 chip. On the Macworld TikTok account (that’s @macworld), Jason posted audio samples to see if you could hear the difference. Most of you did, but it’s not as simple as that.

RichFreee/TikTok

user7493245371593/TikTok

TheMPHMedic/TikTok

Lyla/TikTok

ASKAudio/TikTok

The new Camera app in iOS 26 

Another TikTok short that got a lot of feedback was the video Jason did about the iOS 26 Camera app. He showed how the new, cleaner and simpler UI works.

Allie/Ari/TikTok

Thor/TikTok

Xavi Meister/TikTok

Replacing the Mac with an iPad

Chris Baker sent the following email in response to an article Roman wrote about the Mac’s relevance in light of iPadOS 26.

Real easy:
1) pretty clear ya don’t drive a truck
2) it’s called terminal access. iPads will never be viable until that’s a reality. 

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