In 2017, Apple’s then-newest iPhone foreshadowed the most significant design shift in the device’s history. With the iPhone X’s debut, Apple’s smartphone ditched its iconic home button so it could transition to an all-screen form factor—a design that was ultimately destined for every iPhone model. That transition was finally completed in 2025 when Apple scuttled the last iPhone with a home button, the iPhone SE, and replaced it with the all-screen iPhone 16e, finally bringing all-screen uniformity across the entire iPhone lineup that the iPhone X ushered in eight years earlier.

When I look at Apple’s newly unveiled iPhone Air, I can’t help but think it signals the beginning of the end for the single-screen iPhone. The Air’s thinness is impressive, but the real story is what it foreshadows

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