{"id":247120,"date":"2026-05-17T03:26:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T07:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/17\/xiaomi-almost-built-an-iphone-air-rival-then-cancelled-it\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T04:30:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T08:30:16","slug":"xiaomi-almost-built-an-iphone-air-rival-then-cancelled-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/17\/xiaomi-almost-built-an-iphone-air-rival-then-cancelled-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Xiaomi Almost Built an iPhone Air Rival \u2014 Then Cancelled It"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gizchina.com\/xiaomi-phones\/xiaomi-almost-built-an-iphone-air-rival-then-cancelled-it\">Xiaomi Almost Built an iPhone Air Rival \u2014 Then Cancelled It<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gizchina.com\/xiaomi-phones\/xiaomi-almost-built-an-iphone-air-rival-then-cancelled-it\">https:\/\/www.gizchina.com\/xiaomi-phones\/xiaomi-almost-built-an-iphone-air-rival-then-cancelled-it<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-17 03:26:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.gizchina.com\">www.gizchina.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The project was real. A 5.5mm prototype existed. It nearly reached mass production.<\/p>\n<h4 style=\"word-break:break-word\" class=\"heading-content\">Summary<\/h4>\n<ul class=\"\n          list-content list-outside pl-10\n          list-disc\n        \"><\/p>\n<li class=\"[&#038;>a]:text-primary dark:[&#038;a]:text-white [&#038;a]:underline md:text-lg text-base&#8221;Xiaomi President Lu Weibing confirmed during a May 16 livestream that the company developed an ultra-thin smartphone to rival the iPhone Air \u2014 reaching near-mass-production status before cancelling it due to unacceptable compromises in battery life and thermal performance.<\/li>\n<li class=\"[&#038;>a]:text-primary dark:[&#038;a]:text-white [&#038;a]:underline md:text-lg text-base&#8221;The cancelled prototype measured 5.5mm thick and would have featured dual cameras and premium materials, but the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip runs too hot for a 5.5mm chassis without a vapor chamber, making sustained performance impossible to guarantee.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li class=\"[&#038;>a]:text-primary dark:[&#038;a]:text-white [&#038;a]:underline md:text-lg text-base&#8221;Apple&#8217;s iPhone Air commercial difficulties appear to validate the decision \u2014 MacRumors reported Apple cut iPhone Air production capacity by 80% after surveys found virtually no demand for the $999 device, which ships with one camera and a 3,149mAh battery.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li class=\"[&#038;>a]:text-primary dark:[&#038;a]:text-white [&#038;a]:underline md:text-lg text-base&#8221;In place of an Air-style device, Xiaomi is launching the 17 Max \u2014 a full-power flagship with an 8,000mAh battery, 200MP Leica camera, and Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 \u2014 framing the Max category as a comprehensive upgrade across imaging, performance, and battery, not just a size increase.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li class=\"[&#038;>a]:text-primary dark:[&#038;a]:text-white [&#038;a]:underline md:text-lg text-base&#8221;Lu explained the philosophical difference between &#8220;Max&#8221; and &#8220;Plus&#8221; directly: Plus historically meant a bigger screen on the same base hardware, while Max means an across-the-board hardware upgrade accompanying the larger display.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0&#8220;Lu Weibing put it plainly: the thinner the device becomes, the harder it is to include large batteries, proper cooling systems, and high-performance hardware without affecting daily usability \u2014 and Xiaomi wasn&#8217;t willing to&#8230;<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gizchina.com\/xiaomi-phones\/xiaomi-almost-built-an-iphone-air-rival-then-cancelled-it\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Xiaomi Almost Built an iPhone Air Rival \u2014 Then Cancelled It https:\/\/www.gizchina.com\/xiaomi-phones\/xiaomi-almost-built-an-iphone-air-rival-then-cancelled-it Publish Date: 2026-05-17&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":247121,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/r.testifier.nl\/Acbs8526SDKI\/resizing_type:fill\/width:1200\/height:630\/plain\/https%3A%2F%2Fs3-newsifier.ams3.digitaloceanspaces.com%2Fgizchina.com%2Fimages%2F2026-05%2Fimage-1779002620453-6a096d1169131.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iphone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247120"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247122,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247120\/revisions\/247122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}