iPhone 17 Air's Ultra-Slim Design Leak Gives Off Serious Pixel Vibes

Say hello to the iPhone 17 Air, or at least what it could potentially be. Yet another leak seems to corroborate previous mentions that Apple is slapping a horizontal camera visor on its next gen phones—in this case the Air. We might as well call it the Apple Pixel 9 Air, because the pill-shaped camera island (among other things) bears a remarkable resemblance to the latest Pixel. Apple's decision for this raised setup is likely to have enough room to fit the camera package while keeping the slimness and thinness of the rest of the device intact.

It's 2025, and at least two new smartphone trends are starting to heat up: more complex foldables (because bi-folds are so yesterday) and thin phones. So far, at least two major names are fixing to duke it out for the thinness crown—Samsung and Apple, although it has be noted that both brands are taking slightly different approaches to their upcoming offerings. The former is expected to wow customers with both the design and specs, whereas the latter plans intends marketing to focus on design first, innards second.

Apple's iPhone 17 Air will slot between the iPhone 17 and 17 Pro, thus effectively taking the traditional role of the Plus model in terms of performance and price. The 5.5 millimeters-thin Air is said to sport an A19 SoC, 8GB RAM, and a single 48-megapixel camera. Samsung's 5.84mm Galaxy S25 Edge could sit between the Galaxy S25+ and S25 Ultra, but still rock a Snapdragon 8 Elite, 12GB RAM, vapor chamber cooling, 3,900mAh battery, and an impressive 200MP main camera plus 50MP ultra-wide.

Recently, popular tech leakster fpt showed off renders (via YouTube) of the suppose iPhone 17 Air and 17 Pro, highlighting how both models will/could have radically different camera humps. The single-camera Air will have a Google Pixel 9-like visor, while the 17 Pro could have a larger rectangular bar whereby the camera array is set on the left with the flash, mic port, and Lidar sensor on the far right. To make matters more stupefying, the host also suggests that the regular iPhone 17 will retain the iPhone 16's stove-top camera arrangement. 

Our take on this is that Apple will probably settle on two camera arrangements at most. Nonetheless, Cupertino following through on either of these designs would be fantastic in keeping things fresh.