iPhone 17 Air’s radical redesign teased in supposedly leaked images – but is it real?

(Image credit: Future)

A leaker posted images claiming to show the iPhone 17 Air’s camera design
They show a wide bar housing the camera and flash
However, there are many reasons to doubt the accuracy of the leak

Apple is widely expected to launch a so-called ‘iPhone 17 Air’ in the fall, adding a super-slim device to its iPhone roster and dropping the ‘Plus’ model in the process. That’s fueled a lot of speculation, some of it quite outlandish, and that’s definitely the case for the latest iPhone 17 Air claim.

It comes from leaker Majin Bu, who posted an image on X that they claimed depicted the design of the iPhone 17 Air – something that they later claimed was “confirmed.”

What’s interesting about the image is it shows the rear of the device with an elongated camera module that stretches across almost its entire back surface. There’s a single camera lens on the left, a flash on the right, and a small microphone cutout on the right-hand edge.

The image is very blurry and pixelated, making it difficult to see much in the way of details. Majin Bu also has a spotty track record when it comes to Apple leaks – they accurately predicted the “Desert Titanium” color name of the iPhone 16 Pro months before it launched, but have also published a slew of incorrect rumors, such as the claim that the iPhone 15 would have two front-facing cameras.

Reasons for doubt

Based on what was reported by my source, this would be the new iPhone 17 design. I can't be sure if the image is real, but if it were, it would reflect the leaked design. pic.twitter.com/vXhHqunzN7January 21, 2025

There are other reasons to be skeptical of the leak. For one thing, it would be a complete departure from Apple’s regular camera design. Every other iPhone places the camera in the corner of the device, and it’s been that way for years. If Apple was really going to implement a completely new design, you’d think some of the more high-profile leakers and analysts would have got wind of it from their sources. Yet they’ve all remained tellingly silent so far.

And there’s another problem. The iPhone 17 Air is, as the name suggests, expected to be far thinner than Apple’s other iPhones, which means much less internal space for components. If the camera bar stretches across the entire back frame, it will occupy the same space as the Face ID camera array on the front of the device. It’s highly unlikely that Apple will drop a feature as vital as Face ID, which makes it hard to imagine the company using a rear camera design like this.

Ultimately, we won’t find out for sure until Apple’s iPhone launch event in the fall (assuming the iPhone 17 Air is real and will arrive then). Until that time, we’d recommend treating this latest rumor with a huge dose of skepticism. Until more reputable sources confirm its accuracy, it’s probably safe to assume it’s wide of the mark.

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Alex Blake has been fooling around with computers since the early 1990s, and since that time he's learned a thing or two about tech. No more than two things, though. That's all his brain can hold. As well as TechRadar, Alex writes for iMore, Digital Trends and Creative Bloq, among others. He was previously commissioning editor at MacFormat magazine. That means he mostly covers the world of Apple and its latest products, but also Windows, computer peripherals, mobile apps, and much more beyond. When not writing, you can find him hiking the English countryside and gaming on his PC.