Sonny Dickson has shared a real world photo of two clear cases purportedly for the iPhone 17 Pro series due out this fall. We’ve been expecting the rear camera bump to expand across the width of the phone, and these cases show just how mountain range-sized the camera bar will be.
Apple is expected to use this camera bar design similar to Google Pixel phones on three models in September: iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and the rumored thinner iPhone 17 Air.
For the Pro models, one theory floated on social media by @mia_kacurage is that the nearly edge-to-edge camera bar is needed to accommodate a more capable telephoto camera.
Their rendering and theory suggests rotating the larger telephoto lens and relocating the LiDAR sensor is required to accommodate a 48 megapixel 10x optical zoom camera.
We’ll have to wait for the iPhone 17 Pro tear downs this fall to know if this indeed explains the anticipated choice to ship this giant camera bar.
In the meantime, these alleged iPhone 17 Pro cases via @sonnydickson give us a lot to chew on… and a lot less case coverage. If the camera bump was any larger, it would creep into MagSafe territory.
At this rate, people will have to start buying a case for their case, given that nearly a third of the rear iPhone surface area is still exposed.
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