Metal molds of the iPhone 17 line show off the design changes made by Apple
Metal molds of the iPhone 17 line. | Image credit-Sonny Dickson via AppleInsider
Leaker Sonny Dickson has done it again as he has shared leaked photos of the metal molds belonging to the iPhone 17 series. The molds, created for case manufacturers to give them an idea about the dimensions of the upcoming iPhone 17 models, are sometimes inaccurate. Still, they do give us a look at the new housing for the rear-facing cameras on the iPhone 17 Ultra, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Air. The iPhone 17 will keep the vertically mounted rear cameras designed to help it shoot spatial (3D) photos to be viewed on the Vision Pro.
The new edge-to-edge housing for the iPhone 17 Ultra and iPhone 17 Pro are different sizes and shapes although each will be the home to three cameras. The thinner camera housing for the iPhone 17 Air also runs horizontally from side to side but only has to house the one rear-facing camera on the device. Apple plans on stealing a trick that Google used on early Pixel models; thanks to the use of computational photography, Apple will be able to get away with featuring only one rear camera on its new super-thin iPhone model.
The camera on the iPhone 17 Air will have a 2-in-1 capability which means that with the computational photography, the one camera will not only be the Wide lens but will also have the ability to shoot Ultra-wide photos.
Left and right sides of the iPhone 17 series based on the metal molds. The iPhone 17 Air is second from the right on the first picture. } Image credit-Sonny Dickson via AppleInsider
A side view of the metal molds shows how thin the iPhone 17 Air will be. The unit may have a thin design, but it will have the largest camera bump among the iPhone 17 series models. The same view shows that all four models will come with the Action Button placed above the volume controls along the left side of the phones. The Action Button can be set to quickly activate a feature with a long-press of...the Action Button! Personally, I've set it to activate ChatGPT although Visual Intelligence is also a good option for the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max since neiother model has the Camera Control button.
The iPhone 17 series is expected to be introduced in early September with a release date later that same month. All four models will have iOS 19 pre-installed along with the hopefully improved Apple Intelligence. The iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Air will be powered by the A19 application processor (AP) while the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Ultra will be powered by the A19 Pro AP. Both chipsets will be built by TSMC using its third-generation 3nm node (N3P).
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