Apple’s mission to put a camera in everyone’s hand may have backfired.
The Apple community is buzzing about a photo posted on social media recently that purportedly shows an unreleased iPhone 17 being tested in the wild.
In the photos, shared by X user @Skyfops, a person wearing sunglasses and a hat holds up two phones while walking down the street. One of them clearly looks like an iPhone with its Apple logo covered by a piece of black tape — the other device looks a bit different.
The second device, which appears to be in a case, has a camera lens placement that looks similar to that of current models, but the relocated lidar and LED flash stand out.
The X user who shared the photos said he captured them in San Francisco’s Union Square. Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
If legitimate — Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman wrote in his recent “Power On” newsletter that it was “likely” an iPhone 17 Pro — it would be a rare example of an unreleased iPhone being captured in the wild. And, like the viral Coldplay Kiss Cam moment, it’s yet another reminder that cameras are everywhere these days.
Longtime Apple fans likely remember the famous iPhone 4 leak, where an Apple employee left an unreleased test model at a bar, and Gizmodo got a hold of it and published a detailed analysis of the device in 2010.
Apple is famously secretive, but it still needs to test unreleased products in real-world conditions, not just the lab. To do this, it often uses special cases that camouflage the device’s outward appearance. That unreleased iPhone 4, for example, was found in a case that made it look like an iPhone 3GS.
As for the iPhone 17’s form factor, reports emerged last year that one of the models in the lineup would be a major redesign, a noticeably slimmer model. Informally referred to as the “iPhone 17 Air” within the Apple community, the device is expected to sacrifice some of the cutting-edge tech found in a “Pro” model in order to deliver on a thinner form factor.
Morningstar analyst William Kerwin said the firm expects a new form factor from Apple this September. However, he’s not yet convinced that a “slim” version would be enough to meaningfully move the needle on iPhone sales, saying that it’s what’s beneath the hardware that’s more important.
“We still think that Apple improving its AI software offering is the most critical strategy for revitalizing iPhone unit sales growth,” Kerwin said.
Despite the new placement of the flash, Forrester analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee told BI that “incremental enhancements” are still the name of the game for Apple.
It’s all about making the iPhone “a little bit better — a little bit slimmer,” he said.
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