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I sincerely hope these renders are way off on the actual finish these phones will use because everything I’ve seen so far points to some of the most hideous looking devices we’ve seen in a while.

Me thinks Apple is purposely working with rumour sites supplying fake info/ images.

So when the actual iPhone 17 is released, by comparison, people will say, ‘hey, that looks good’.
 
Top Tier

  • Ultra Thin iPhone 17 Air - The iPhone 17 Air is 2025's most exciting iPhone rumor, because it's the first real redesign that we've seen to the iPhone in years. We got to try Samsung's competing super thin Galaxy S25 Edge, and it's nice holding such a lightweight smartphone.
  • That Orange Color - The iPhone 17 Pro is rumored to come in an orange-like shade. It's probably going to be more muted than we've seen and copper in tone, but it's still a cool color we haven't seen before.
  • 24-Megapixel Selfie Camera - Better selfies and FaceTime video quality? Nothing to complain about there. The 24-megapixel camera is rumored for all iPhone 17 models.
  • More RAM - The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Air models are expected to have 12GB RAM, up from 8GB. More RAM is always a plus for games and future AI features.
  • iPhone 17 Pro Battery Life - According to rumors, the iPhone 17 Pro Max will have the biggest battery of any iPhone to date with a capacity of ~5,000mAh, so it should last even longer than the 33 hour maximum of the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
Pretty Awesome

  • iPhone 17 Colors - The standard iPhone 17 is supposed to come in green and purple, two colors that we haven't seen for a while.
  • Bigger iPhone 17 - The standard iPhone 17 will be 6.3 inches, so it'll match the size of the iPhone 17 Pro.
  • ProMotion - There have been rumors that all four iPhone 17 models will support 120Hz ProMotion refresh rates this year. If that happens, it's one less thing distinguishing the Pro models, but a plus for buyers who get the standard model.
  • Two-Tone Pro Design - The iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have a two-material design with more metal and less glass at the back. Anything that makes the iPhone harder to break is a plus.
  • 48-Megapixel Telephoto - The iPhone 17 Pro is supposed to get an upgraded 48-megapixel Telephoto lens for improved zoomed-in shots.
  • A19 Chip - The iPhone 17 and 17 Air could get an A19 chip, while the 17 Pro models get an A19 Pro. It's still a 3-nanometer chip, but it'll be faster and more efficient.
  • Improved Cooling - The iPhone 17 models are supposed to feature better heat dissipation, which will let the A19 chips run faster with less thermal throttling.
  • Better Display Coating - The iPhone 17 Air and iPhone 17 Pro could have an anti-reflective display that's more scratch resistant. Anything that improves durability is a plus.

These top tier "features" are everything that is wrong with apple and apple fanboys, these should not be the best.


Orange!!! wow, I mean this is TOP TIER features man
super slim phone with tiny battery and one camera!!!! wow
more RAM!!! WOW but but but iOS doesn't need ram right?
A19!!!! wow you won't be able to tell the difference but WOW


cringe.
 
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At what point will it be against the trade descriptions act to keep labelling something as "5.5mm thin"... While the ENORMOUS camera section is double that?? It's like taking your ankle as your waist measurement.

"ENORMOUS" is doing a lot of work here.

MR, can we add an eyeroll emoji to the reactions list? I know I'm not the first to ask this. Maybe it would get overused though.
 
Think I’ve used the 16 PM new side camera button once….where it’s situated is not very ergonomic for pressing with index finger. If the button was slightly more near the bottom it would help loads!

If they haven’t done anything about this problem then it’s a no from me.
 
Why do MR iPhone 17 mockups always have that lower framing on the back?
The biggest customers for models like these are case manufacturers, who want to be able to offer third-party iPhone cases ASAP after the release of the iPhone. They would care much more about precise dimensions and the placement of things (like the magnets for MagSafe) much more than how they look.
 
For the present. But more RAM usually indicates that there are new features that MUST have that amount of RAM or they don't run, which more quickly pushes older iPhones into obsolescence.

Well maybe if apple didn't penny pinch and added more ram to those older phones when they were being made; then it wouldn't be a problem today. But too many apologeticists kept spruiking that iphones didn't need more ram.. that was at least until they did need more ram and a phone bought less than a year ago is now gated out.
 
Think I’ve used the 16 PM new side camera button once….where it’s situated is not very ergonomic for pressing with index finger. If the button was slightly more near the bottom it would help loads!
Huh. I use the camera button all the time. It's great having one physical button that will bring up the camera no matter what context the phone is in. Though I do have it set to take a double-click to activate, to avoid accidents. If it was nearer the bottom, for me, it would be much more likely to get accidentally pressed by fingers that are holding onto the phone - where it is, almost exactly halfway between the side button and the bottom edge, seems perfect. For me it falls under my middle finger, with index and ring fingers on either side to support the phone.
 
So it’s basically an iPhone 16 with a new paint job, same as it always is every year. Apple is stale and boring.
Yep, just like the iPhone 16 is an OG iPhone with a new paint job. I mean, as long as we're grossly oversimplifying things.
Basically every year is close to the previous, but the changes do add up. Just like every other class of product ever introduced you see somewhat big changes at first as it moves from barely useable to a useful, stable product. I updated every year up to iPhone 4 then slowly moved to about every three years -- and that's a good thing. Means I can spend money on other things.
 
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I sincerely hope these renders are way off on the actual finish these phones will use because everything I’ve seen so far points to some of the most hideous looking devices we’ve seen in a while.

is there a reason for the two tone back? or did the lead designer rewatch national lampoon's vacation and got inspired by the griswald station wagon
 
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I wouldn’t know anything about it.

Maybe you could explain it and there will be less of a misunderstanding in the future.
It’s been explained here so many times in the past
Being able to have a smaller aperture with mechanical aperture blades would not help you achieve a natural shallow depth of field effect, as that is the opposite of how the physics of light work.
I keep seeing MacRumors posts essentially saying “aperture control = background blur and bokeh” which is only the case when you’re controlling the aperture to make it larger
An iPhone lens without aperture blades is already at its widest opening and designed to let in as much light as physically possible. You can’t make the lens larger than it actually is.
Physical aperture blades in the phone can only be used to decrease the amount of light reaching the sensor.
 
I don’t think so. They would have brought it to the MacBook Air and iPads. I would also gather that 99% of the people who buy the non pro phones have ZERO idea what a 120Hz refresh rate even is and don’t honestly care about it.
I would agree that most people probably don't care about 120Hz so that same logic would apply to any device. It's just that the base iPhones have been heavily rumoured to finally get it.
 
I would agree that most people probably don't care about 120Hz so that same logic would apply to any device. It's just that the base iPhones have been heavily rumoured to finally get it.
I'll believe it when I see it. This just increases costs for Apple for a feature that the majority of users who buy these phones isn't asking for.
 
I wouldn’t know anything about it.

Maybe you could explain it and there will be less of a misunderstanding in the future.

Here is what MR wrote:
Mechanical Aperture - iPhone 17 Pro models could have a mechanical aperture that will let users adjust the amount of light reaching the lens. It's useful for depth of field in DSLRs, but the utility in a smartphone remains to be seen, especially because Apple already has software-based tools for adjusting depth of field.

That's all accurate. A mechanical aperture in a lens works like the iris in your eye - it changes the amount of light that gets to the sensor. Like your eye, if there's a lot of light, such as outdoors on a sunny day, the aperture can get smaller, letting less light reach the sensor in order to get a correct exposure*. This is done with little blades that close and open to regulate the amount of light entering the camera. Those blades are what MR is referring to as a "mechanical aperture." The aperture is the opening, the blades are called the diaphragm. Most phone cameras don't have a diaphragm, they alter the exposure using other means.

Screenshot 2025-07-18 at 10.44.09 AM.png



Another effect of changing the aperture is depth of field. That's the amount of the photo that is acceptably sharp, in front of and behind the point of focus.

Depth of field can be shallow (you've seen photos where only the subject is sharp, and the background is soft and blurry) or broad (where almost everything is sharp in front of and behind the subject).

Wide open apertures on the left in the illustration above give a shallower depth of field. Smaller apertures on the right give broad or large depth of field.

DoF-sketch.jpg


So the shallowest depth of field you can achieve* is with your lens set to it's widest aperture, which allows the most amount of light to reach the sensor. Most phone cameras don't have mechanical apertures so they adjust exposure using software, exposure time** and other means.

As @MrRom92 mentioned, you can't use aperture blades to give yourself a shallower depth of field than the lens already has at its widest setting, which it has by default (though the initial MR post didn't mention depth of field being shallower, it only mentioned depth of field). You can however use it to give yourself larger depth of field to make more things in front of and behind the point of focus to be acceptably sharp. So you could use a mechanical aperture to make more things sharp, for example in landscape photography.

Phone cameras already have small sensors, and this too is related to depth of field. So the changes to depth of field that one would get from having a mechanical aperture are pretty minor, and also relate to other things like the subject's distance to the camera and the focal length of the lens. Depth of field can be changed by more than just the aperture setting. It's one factor.

There are other reasons to have a mechanical aperture besides depth of field. For example if you wanted to use a small aperture that lets in very little light, that would allow you to use a long exposure. Useful if you wanted to show a blur of water in a waterfall, rather than freezing the motion of the water.

Hope this helps.


*All other things being equal. For the purpose of this discussion I'm not going into ISO, exposure times, filters, software or other things that can alter the exposure and DOF.

** I'm not using the term "shutter speed" since phone cameras don't have actual shutters. They regulate exposure time by changing how long the sensor pixels are turned on to record an image. Like shutter speeds, this time varies to adjust exposures.
 
That huge camera bump would be a no-go for me. Much rather have a lower quality camera and the back of the phone flush. What ever happened to thin being in?
 
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