Supply chain leak suggests that the iPhone 17 Pro will look weird

A while back we heard that the iPhone 17 Pro will have a rectangular camera bump, instead of the current square bump that has been used for many generations. That report also claimed that Apple is dumping titanium and is going back to aluminum for the frames. More recently, a report suggested that Apple will stick with titanium for the Pros, so the weird camera bump rumor is false... right?

Perhaps not and it may be worse than we imagined. A post on Weibo shows this image and claims that it is a bare frame from the iPhone supply chain. The cameras will be in the top area with the ultra-wide lens going in the middle (it is the thinnest module, so this helps to leave enough room for the Face ID hardware on the other side).

Alleged iPhone 17 Pro frame

Leakster Digital Chat Station lends credence to this leak and shares a speculative render of the iPhone 17 Pro. This ties back to the original rumor, which claimed that the back will be a mix of aluminum and glass (the big hole at the bottom of the frame will be covered with glass to let wireless charging, NFC and other signals go through).

Speculative iPhone 17 Pro render

And can we talk about the placement of the camera island for a moment? Yes, it looks like the “visor” on Pixel phones, but as you’ll notice, Google placed its cameras lower. The iPhone 17 design will be basically impossible to hold horizontally without covering up at least some of the cameras.

Google Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL

Cupertino has always been cognizant of ergonomics, so it’s hard to believe they will get it this wrong. There is almost a full year until the 17-series arrives, so maybe this is a failed experiment.

Source 1 | Source 2 (in Chinese) | Via