- A ‘leaked’ image shows a screen protector for the iPhone 17 family
- And the iPhone 17 Air has a standout change with a left-oriented selfie camera
- This dull tip could hint at more than meets the eye
The iPhone 17 Air has been tipped to have a front-facing camera on the left-hand side of the Dynamic Island that the rumored super-slim phone is expected to have.
This comes courtesy of tipster Majin Bu, who has a habit of surfacing claimed leaks taken from Chinese social media on X, often with a mixed track record of accuracy. Bu posted an image of screen protectors that are supposedly for the iPhone 17 lineup.
These images are hardly dynamic and don’t hint at big design changes for the next-generation iPhones. But for an image labelled ‘IP17Air’, the front-facing camera has been shifted from the right-hand side of the Dynamic Island (as seen on the iPhone 16 models and expected for their next-gen counterparts) to the left.
Now, before you yawn yourself off this article, let me explain why it could be more interesting than you think.
Moving a camera isn’t a big deal, especially as Apple would likely make sure iOS 26 takes this into account when using the likes of the reworked camera app to snap selfies and so on.
But Apple tends to rarely do things for the sake of it or just for a bit of design flair. Rather, I think this change could be a clue as to how Cupertino might have reworked the internal layout of its iPhones to produce a super-slim variant of a next-gen Apple phone.
Formula iPhone
If you happen to follow Formula One – which, as it happens, Apple has made a movie about – you’ll know that how components in an F1 car are packaged is vital to getting the most performance out of a car; in terms of aerodynamics, weight distribution, weight, and so on. The rules of F1 mean that there are limitations to how much can be changed with each team’s car to ensure that one doesn’t have an unfair advantage over the others.
And I think the same logic can be applied from an F1 car to making super-slim phones, well, to an extent, so bear with me.
This is because consumers have certain expectations from phones – especially those from the biggest brands – such as decent performance, rear- and front-facing cameras, a solid battery life, and a decent display. And given phones have basically got somewhat iterative generation-to-generation, there are arguably limitations to what can be done to make a phone slim and light without too many compromises.
As such, this tipped camera reposition in the Dynamic Island is a potential hint that Apple is working to package the internal components and structures of the iPhone 17 Air in such a way as to make it seriously slim.
Given Samsung beat Apple to the punch with the Galaxy S25 Edge, I think Tim Cook’s crew will need something special to stand out and avoid being slated for following in its rival’s footsteps instead of leading.
Of course, the iPhone 17 Air could still be rumor and speculation, with screen protector makers reacting to the tips rather than any official design. But at this point, a form of iPhone 17 Air seems quite likely; we’re sure to find out more come the expected September Apple event.
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