The iPhone 17 Air makes other models look chunky in new leaked dummy shots

A set of iPhone 17 dummies appeared last night in a new leak from Sonny Dickson, who has a long history of reliably leaking the nonfunctional versions of iPhones that case and accessory makers use to prepare for the next year’s crop of handsets. The images look very much like the renders we’ve seen in recent weeks, down to the phone-spanning camera bump that Apple is expected to add to all but the standard iPhone 17.

Dickson includes shots of the dummies from all sides. The edge-on shots here really do a good job showing how big of a difference there will be between the rumored iPhone 17 Air and the others. The rest of the iPhone line, which I have never thought of as especially thick, looks absolutely beefy by comparison. Take a look:

The dummies appear to back up rumors that the iPhone 17 Air will be a 6.6-inch phone, positioning it in between the 6.3-inch iPhone 16 Pro and 6.9-inch 16 Pro Max of this year. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reiterates that it’s going to have a 6.6-inch screen in today’s Power On newsletter. Apple had considered making it 6.9 inches, he writes, but “pulled the plug on that over fears that a thin device with a giant screen would be susceptible to bending.” He adds that the phone will get slim bezels like 16 Pro phones, a Dynamic Island cutout, and Camera Control button — which Dickson’s dummy photos seem to support.

The iPhone 17 Air is expected to be as thin as 5.5mm, with a single camera on the back like the iPhone 16E. Gurman writes that the phone will get a mix of high-end features, like a 120Hz ProMotion display, and low-end ones, like an Apple A19 chip instead of an A19 Pro. Despite its thinness, he says it will have battery life on par with other iPhones. Finally, he expects the phone will cost “roughly $900,” or about what the iPhone 16 Plus starts at now.

If people take to the 17 Air, Gurman says Apple plans to do more ambitious things with it, like make it the port-free iPhone that rumors have swirled about for years now. He says the company may bring the thin approach to other models, too, and again says that the methods and technologies used to make the 17 Air are part of Apple’s preparations to release its first folding phone — one similar to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold, but with a less-visible crease — by 2026. The Information made a similar folding iPhone prediction in June last year.