iPhone 17 Pro leak gives us a close-up view of the new camera bar — and I'm still not sure about this

We've known for a while that the iPhone 17 Pro is likely to get something of a redesign, thanks to an extended camera bar on the back of the phone. We've seen plenty of examples of what that might look like, but leaker Majin Bu may have offered the best look yet at just how much the phone could change when it shows up this fall.

The new images show a close-up of what appears to be an iPhone 17 dummy unit in a matte black color scheme. Considering the level of detail in this unit, this is probably a late-stage dummy model — assuming it's legitimate and not a fan-made mockup.

As we've seen before the camera bar stretches across the width of the phone, while maintaining the same triangular-shaped camera layout of previous iPhone Pros. Which is certainly an... interesting design choice. It's different, but I'm not sure it was particularly well thought out.

Unless the extra blank space has some special feature of purpose I can't figure out, I can't really understand why Apple chose this design over other options. We'll have to wait until the fall launch event to find out more about what's going on there.

If you look closely at the images you can also make out the power and Camera Control buttons on the side. We didn't expect to see those features vanish, so it's no surprise to see them here, but it's nice to know they're probably sticking around.

iPhone 17 Pro: All the rumored camera changes

]The design isn't the only way the iPhone 17 Pro is expected to be changing, though. We have heard rumors about ways the hardware itself might change, starting with a new 48MP telephoto lens. That should offer some parity with the other two lenses, assuming they don't get any resolution bumps of their own.

Sadly one report claims that this increased resolution may come at the expense of optical zoom. Rather than having a 5x zooming lens, like the iPhone 16 Pro's tetraprism shooter, the report claims it'll be downgraded to 3.5x.

Presumably, if that happens, Apple may employ a digital alternative — similar to the iPhone 16's 2x "optical quality" telephoto feature. Samsung did the same after dropping the optical zoom from 10x to 5x on the Galaxy S24 Ultra.

Other potential upgrades include a new 24MP selfie camera, up from 12MP, and dual-video recording capabilities. That would allow iPhone 17 Pro users to film from the front and back cameras simultaneously.

We won't find out for sure until the iPhone 17 launch event this fall, but in the meantime you can keep up to date with all the latest news and rumors in our iPhone 17 Pro hub. Or if the Pro model isn't your thing, we have hubs for the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Air and iPhone 17 Pro Max that cover those phones in greater detail.

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