While the iPhone 17 Pro is not expected to launch until September, a prototype of the device has potentially been spotted in the wild. However, the mysterious device could be just about anything, so this might simply be a false alarm.
X account @Skyfops today shared two somewhat blurry photos of the mysterious device. The post was later shared by Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman.
“I just spotted a test development iPhone in the wild,” the post said.
Everything that we have wrote below is purely speculation.
In one of the photos, a person wearing reflective sunglasses can be seen holding what appears to be an iPhone inside of a thick black protective case, which might be intended to disguise the design of the iPhone 17 Pro in public. They are also holding what appears to be an iPhone 16 Pro with a sticker on the back of it, which could be hiding a data matrix code that allows Apple to track internal iPhones used by employees for development purposes.
What might make the disguised device an iPhone 17 Pro? Well, rumors indicate that the back of the device will have a rectangular camera bump, with the LED flash, rear microphone, and LiDAR Scanner expected to be vertically aligned on the right side of the bump. And in the photo, the back of the device seems to have circular openings in the top-right corner for what could be the LED flash and LiDAR Scanner. Your guess is as good as ours, though.
Gurman seems to think the photos might be the real deal. “This looks legit,” he said. Or maybe he’s just being sarcastic. Who knows.
Adding to the intrigue, @Skyfops said “the guy on the right was security and trying to go in front of the iPhone to hide it.” Allegedly!
The user is located in Los Angeles, according to the account’s bio.
Even if this really was an iPhone 17 Pro prototype in the wild, these photos do not really show anything that is not already rumored. But who doesn’t love an old-school 2010-era rumor in mid-summer, as we count down the days to Apple’s announcement?
