Stop Believing These iPhone 17 Pro Rumors… Here’s Why This Design Won’t Happen

I can bet my career on the fact that the new iPhone 17 Pro will NOT have an elongated camera bump with lenses just clustered on the left side. Apple is known to make some weird design decisions in its life – purposely leaving a massive blank space in its camera bump isn’t one of them.

So, we’ve known for a while that the upcoming iPhone will have a horizontal camera bump, YouTuber Front Page Tech (also known as FPT) seems to have gotten his hands on a dummy phone that gives us more details on the camera bump’s layout. Contrary to popular belief, FPT says the camera lenses will not be laid out in a horizontal line, but will rather be clustered along the side like in older models. He explains his reasons (which are plausible, to be frank), but I’m here to tell you what my ‘expert’ opinion is. In short, the new phones will either have the camera lenses arrayed in a straight line, or Apple may have some other hidden secrets. These renders that FPT shares in the video above are, as I believe it, absolutely wrong, and I have my reasons too.

Designer: Asher Dipps for Front Page Tech

In his video, FPT makes the case that Apple opted for the corner lens array on the back because of the infamous notch on the front. Cameras notoriously require space and hardware, and the centrally located notch meant that Apple didn’t have space on the back to fit a centrally located camera system. To account for that, Apple shifted all the lenses to the left side, and that’s been the case for years.

This meant that even with the horizontal bar, Apple would face the same problem. The lenses (or at least the middle one) would interfere on a component level with the front-facing camera and the FaceID system. FPT backs this with claims that he actually ‘saw’ the iPhone 17 Pro in person (or at least he saw a very convincing case-making prototype) and that had all the camera lenses in the corner, like they always do.

I’m here to say that’s wrong – on two broad levels. The first level is that just from a design POV, this makes absolutely no sense. Why would Apple elongate the camera bump and leave so much empty space on the right by clustering the lenses on the left? It’s a deviation from logic and it’s something I don’t see Apple doing just because it doesn’t make sense for a company that prides itself SO MUCH on aesthetics that this would trigger Tim Cook on an OCD level. Hell, we’re talking about Apple – the company that matches the corner radius on the iPhone, AirPods Case, and MacBook – because it can.

The second reason why these renders are not credible, is because I believe that in order for them to be so – they’d need to have more to them. What do I mean? Apple’s created a square camera bump for its Pro models ever since the iPhone 11 Pro in 2019. If they were to elongate the bump sideways – why would they do it without using that real estate? What does that bump achieve? Better battery? A charging point for your Apple Watch? Heck no. Maybe a display? I really think not.

I guess my point is, that if Apple’s truly going for a horizontal bump, it’s definitely with the mindset of arraying the camera lenses in a horizontal manner. These renders here do not make sense as they stand, unless there was something more to them. The bump extending all the way to the right corner NEEDS to have a more substantial reason. And I believe that reason is a horizontal camera array.

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