Welcome to the TechBrew Ride Home for Tuesday, September 9th, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough today.

All the headlines from the iPhone event earlier today, including the new iPhone Air.

The judge isn't happy with Anthropics' $1.5 billion payday to authors.

Open AI isn't happy with California and might leave.

And despite what it said publicly,

Google recently argued in court that the post-AI web is already dying. Here's what you miss

today in the world of tech.

Happy iPhone event day, everyone. iPhone 17 lineup, new iPhone Air and more. Let's do this.

Apple's new iPhone Air is the statement piece here, an ultra-slim titanium-framed iPhone that measures just 5.6 millimeters thick.

Apple's thinnest iPhone ever. It pairs the Air branding with a design emphasizing thinness, durability, and brightness.

The Air uses a 6.5-inch Pro-Motion OLED that now peaks at 3,000 nits outdoors, and

Apple is leaning into durability claims with its ceramic shield-2 glass and ceramic shielded titanium on both sides.

Apple positions it as pro performance in a thin and light design powered by the new A19 Processor.

Networking also gets a notable shift. Apple is touting a new in-house C1-X modem, two times faster than the prior C1, and a companion N1 chip that handles Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and thread, including support for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, all in aid of power efficiency and accessory connectivity. More on that in a second. In a design decision

clearly meant to maximize internal volume for the battery, the air also goes e-sim only. Apple is

promoting all-day battery life with all of these changes and even cites up to 40 hours of video

playback, unusually specific for an ultra-thin device.

Color options include black, white, beige, and light blue.

The base model starts at $9.99 for 256 gigabytes of RAM, with pre-orders opening today and availability on September 19th.

On the camera side, the air has a single 48-machyixel rear camera. The front camera is more interesting.

It's got an 18 megapixel selfie camera with center stage and a square sensor so you can

frame landscape-style selfies without having to rotate the phone. You just hold the phone up,

...