- The iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max could switch from titanium to aluminum
- The upcoming Pro models might also have a larger camera bump than current models
- The iPhone 17 Air could be too thin for a SIM card slot
Apple might be taking a backwards step when it comes to the design of the iPhone 17 series, as a new report suggests the company will equip all four phones with an aluminum frame.
This report is a subscriber-only article at The Information, but it's been summarized by 9to5Mac, and this is one of many design changes detailed in it.
Apple already uses aluminum for the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus, but the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max instead have a titanium frame, which is generally considered to be a more premium material, so it seems odd that the company would switch them to aluminum.
According to this report though it’s not just the frames that will be aluminum – in the case of the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, the top half of the back will also be aluminum, with the bottom half being glass, as wireless charging doesn’t work through a metal back.
That sounds like a huge change from the all-glass rears of the current models, and the report adds that the Pro and Pro Max models will also have a larger rectangular camera bump, and that this too will be aluminum rather than the '3D glass' of current models.
A larger camera bump also doesn’t sound appealing, but it could be a sign that improved cameras are planned for the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max. Current leaks suggest a new 48MP telephoto camera could be included, so perhaps that’s the reason.
The rumored move to aluminum is more baffling, especially since this would give the Pro models one less differentiator from the standard ones. But perhaps it’s for cost or environmental reasons.
The iPhone 17 Air could also sport a questionable design
The report also details the rumored iPhone 17 Air, and those details have been summarized by 9to5Mac in a separate article. In any case, the report says that Apple is aiming for this to be between 5mm and 6mm thick, which would make it a lot slimmer than the 7.8mm iPhone 16.
However, Apple is apparently “finding it hard to fit the battery and thermal materials into the device.” That chimes with an earlier leak, though that report stated that as a result, the iPhone 17 Air would be thicker than 6mm. So we’re not sure which leak is right, or if either of them is.
This new report adds that current prototypes have just one earpiece speaker, while other iPhones have two, and that – as other leaks have suggested – the iPhone 17 Air will have just one rear camera. This will apparently be housed in a “large, centered camera bump.”
Interestingly, the report also says that Apple hasn’t found a way to fit a physical SIM card slot into the iPhone 17 Air, so if it is this slim at launch then it might be eSIM-only. Apple has already made that move with other iPhones in the US, but units in some countries such as the UK include both an eSIM and a SIM card slot. The bigger issue would be China, where eSIMs aren’t supported.
Finally, current prototype units of the iPhone 17 Air apparently use Apple’s in-house 5G modem, and this is said to be slower and less reliable than the Qualcomm modems that current iPhones use. It also apparently doesn’t support faster mmWave 5G, though it’s possible that by the time the iPhone 17 Air launches, Apple will have improved its modem.
Still, for now this sounds like it could be an enormously compromised device if this report is accurate. We should find out how accurate it is in September, as that’s when the iPhone 17 series – including the iPhone 17 Air – is likely to launch.
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