iPhone Air owners get shortchanged in iPhone Duo trade-in program
Apple presented the iPhone 18 Pro phones and its first foldable, the iPhone Duo, last week. While the Duo will not be available for purchase till late October, the iPhone 18 Pro phones can now be pre-ordered, and Apple has revealed its trade-in value for older iPhones.
As shown on the Apple website, last year's iPhone 17 Pro Max has the highest trade-in value, at up to $885. The iPhone 17 Pro ranks second and is valued at up to $785. Those numbers mirror the prices of both devices, with the iPhone 17 Pro Max starting at $100 more than its smaller Pro sibling at launch.
Things are different with the iPhone Air, however. The slim, design-focused device debuted last year with a $999 MSRP—$100 less than the iPhone 17 Pro. Apple's valuation of the iPhone Air in its trade-in program isn't consistent with that, though: it's valued at $585. That's the same as the vanilla iPhone 17, which cost $799 at launch, $200 less than the iPhone Air.
"Why?" is the big question here, and it's likely as simple as the Air having less used-market value than the other devices in the lineup, particularly the iPhone 17. According to Counterpoint Research, the iPhone 17 was the best-selling device in the world in Q2 2026. Four other iPhone models make the top ten list—including the iPhone 16 from 2024—but the iPhone Air doesn't.
Evidently, the iPhone Air is not as desirable as other iPhone models, and that's no surprise. The Air's selling point is its thin, light chassis, but that comes at the expense of secondary camera lenses, stereo speakers, and battery capacity.
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