Apple's iPhone 17 may feature one unexpected change — and you won't be happy about it

Apple's next generation of iPhones is already getting leaked, but Apple fans might not like what they see.

Less than a week after Apple launched the iPhone 16e (a redesigned iPhone SE), designs for its next generation of phones are already popping up online. Apple launched the iPhone 16 lineup in September 2024, so we're still several months out from an official iPhone 17 launch, but those leaks for the iPhone 17 lineup may not be exactly what iPhone 17 optimists had in mind.

Leaked photos reveal a potentially controversial iPhone 17 design

On Sunday, X user MajinBu leaked CAD mockups that seem to show the designs for the iPhone 17 lineup. While it's common for images like this to leak ahead of a new iPhone launch, there's something pretty unusual about the designs.

First: They look a lot like Google Pixel phones.

Four models are shown in the image which appear to be, from left to right: the iPhone 17 Air, iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone 17 Pro.

The base iPhone 17 looks almost identical to the current iPhone 16 with a small camera bump that hugs the two lenses in the top left corner. However, the other three models feature strikingly large camera bumps that appear to extend across the width of the phone, much like Google's camera bumps on its Pixel phones. The iPhone 17 Air in particular looks like a design pulled straight from the Pixel playbook.

Regardless of how you feel about the design of Google Pixel phones, it's a surprising turn of the tables for Apple to be copying Google and not the other way around.

Could the foldable iPhone revive Apple's design creativity?

I'll admit, I was more than a little disappointed to see Apple's latest iPhone design looking so much like a Google Pixel. I don't like the large camera bumps on Pixel phones, but it's especially disappointing considering there's been little significant change in Apple's iPhone designs over the past several years.

On one hand, smartphone manufacturers like Apple have to contend with the fact that they have effectively nailed the smartphone design. The basic pocket-size slab-with-a-screen with a camera on the back is the perfect form factor for a smartphone.

Unfortunately, that also means there's only so much you can do with that form factor, but there's still one Apple hasn't tried yet: a foldable iPhone.

Rumors about a foldable iPhone have been circulating for years now, but Apple has yet to launch one. Instead, they're leaning into ultra-thin tech like the iPhone 17 Air. That could be a precursor to a thin, foldable iPhone, but it's been almost two years since Apple reportedly filed a patent for a foldable and we have yet to see it come to fruition.

We'll have to wait and see if Apple ever releases a foldable, but I hope they haven't given up on it. A foldable iPhone might just infuse some much-needed creativity into the next generation of iPhones (even if Samsung did it first).

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