We’ve heard for some time that the iPhone 17—either the entire line or just the new “Air” variant—will change up the iconic design of Apple’s phone with a new centered camera bump. Now, thanks to an alleged leaked image (shown above) of the phone’s frame out of the supply chain from a Weibo user, we have our first idea of what it might look like.
The text of the accompanying post (machine-translated from Chinese) is, “The frame of the new iPhone in the supply chain is indeed like this. The ultra-wide angle is placed in the middle to make room for the front structured light.”
This, together with the thickness of the frame in the image, makes it seem as though the new design will apply to more than just the slim iPhone 17 Air. The frame looks thicker than what you’d find on a super-slim iPhone rumored to be just 6mm thick, and the new slim model is said to not have an ultra-wide camera at all, so this appears to be a leak of some other model.
The camera island has the same rounded corners as current iPhones do, but a large rectangular shape that carries across the phone. The iPhone has kept its cameras in the upper-left corner (when looking at the iPhone’s back) since the original iPhone, so this would be a huge departure.
With today’s large and protruding camera bumps, it also makes a lot of sense. iPhones do not lie flat on a desk, wobbling around as you use them, unless you use a case with enough bulk to fix that problem. A camera bump centered on the back and extending most of the way across it would make it much more stable. It would also help alleviate the current issue with some wireless charging stands, where you sometimes get it lined up and charged and sometimes don’t, because it’s hard to tell if the bump is interfering.
For more about the 2025 iPhones, which are expected to launch in September, see our roundup of all the iPhone 17 rumors so far.
