Usually we vibe with the leaks, but we're feeling skeptical about this one.

Apple is several months away from launching the iPhone 17 series but a significant camera redesign may be on the horizon. Leaker Majin Bu has shared CAD renders of what are purported to be the iPhone 17, 17 Pro, 17 Pro Max, and the rumored iPhone 17 Air — with the latter three all featuring Pixel-like rectangular camera bars.

The new CAD renders show the rear camera bars on the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max models stretched to extend their currently square design, now reaching across the entire upper body. They still retain the rounder edges seen on the current models. The 17 “Air” features a similar design, albeit with only a single rear camera lens. According to these renders, the camera module on the standard iPhone 17 model will be largely unchanged, differentiating it from the premium models.

Majin Bu is an established leaker but, as MacRumors notes, the information he’s shared hasn’t always been correct. These renders are just some of several similar leaks about the iPhone 17’s rectangular camera bar in the last few months, however, with concept designs also shared by Front Page Tech host Jon Prosser and other leakers including Ice Universe, Fixed Focus Digital, and Digital Chat Station.

In January, Majin Bu also posted an image of iPhone bodies alleged to be “part of” the iPhone 17 family. The design looks similar to the iPhone “Air” render he shared yesterday, and resembles the pill-shaped camera bar sported by Google’s Pixel 9 lineup. Rumors about the so-called iPhone 17 Air have been floating around for months describing a new, slimmer model that’s expected to join the upcoming iPhone lineup, similar to Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S25 Edge.

iPhone 17, the design seems confirmed. pic.twitter.com/5Wh6alUiMr

— Majin Bu (@MajinBuOfficial) January 21, 2025

It’s early days and these leaks shouldn’t be taken as gospel. We won’t know the official iPhone 17 design until Apple reveals it later this year, with an announcement expected sometime in September.

Apple is readying its MacBook Air line for an update to M4 chips in March, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. With the slim laptops’ spec bump, the MacBook line’s M4 transition will be complete.

Gurman didn’t provide timing beyond that the laptops are coming next month, but as usual before it launches a product, Apple is “preparing its marketing, sales and retail teams for the debut” and letting its retail stock of the laptops clear out. Both the 13-inch and 15-inch models are expected to come at the same time, like last year.

Since the Apple Silicon transition, the MacBook Airs have largely shared specs with the low-end MacBook Pro, just packed into a slimmer laptop with omissions like fewer ports and no cooling fan. The base model 14-inch Pro starts with 10-core CPUs and 10-core GPUs and feature 16GB of RAM — you can get a sense of that configuration’s performance from our review of the base M4 MacBook Pro. Ideally, the new Air models will also get the Pro’s key upgrade of being able to simultaneously connect to two external displays with the lid open.

That leaves only the Mac Studio and Mac Pro, which are still M2-generation machines, without M4 chips. Gurman has pegged the Mac Studio’s M4 bump for “between March and June” and the Mac Pro’s anywhere from June to this fall.

Apple has dismissed its lawsuit against the former engineer it sued for leaking information about its Journal app and Vision Pro headset, as reported earlier by 9to5Mac. The former employee, Andrew Aude, issued an apology on X, saying, “Leaking was not worth it. I sincerely apologize to my former colleagues who not only worked tirelessly on projects for Apple, but work hard to keep them secret.”

Apple filed a lawsuit against Aude in March 2024, accusing the former worker of leaking “information about more than a half-dozen different Apple policies and products,” including spatial computing efforts, details about an unannounced app, and corporate headcounts. Around the same time Aude allegedly connected with a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, the outlet published a report about the not-yet-released Journal app.

But now, a February 6th filing with a California Superior Court says, “Aude has reached an agreement with Apple to resolve this matter.” Aude posted a statement on X the same day, which you can read below:

I spent nearly eight years as a software engineer at Apple. During that time, I was given access to sensitive internal Apple information, including wha …

Read the full story at The Verge.

While Mark Zuckerberg and Meta press forward with augmented glasses projects buoyed by its million-selling set of smart Ray-Bans, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman says that Apple just pulled the plug on an AR glasses project. Codenamed N107, they’re described as something that would’ve looked similar to regular glasses but with added displays in the lenses that could connect to a Mac.

With features that sound similar to devices like the Xreal One AR glasses, the glasses could’ve delivered on the Vision Pro feature that’s closest to being any kind of a killer app (popping up a huge virtual monitor anywhere) without the $3,499 price and heavy design that required a head strap. The glasses also would’ve had tint-changing lenses that, like the Vision Pro’s Eye Sight, could signal to onlookers whether the wearer was busy or not. While other details are fuzzy, it doesn’t appear as if the N107 glasses would’ve had a camera or any of the mixed-reality features of the Vision Pro.

A big problem, according to Gurman, was developing something that worked well while being cost-effective proved to be a challenge. Apple initially wanted the N107 to connect to an iPhone, but it proved to be a battery-guzzler, and the iPhone itself didn’t have enough juice to power the glasses — hence the shift to a Mac. Unfortunately, that switch purportedly didn’t seem to go over well with executives in testing.

This most recent cancellation puts a big question mark over Apple’s future AR and XR plans. Apple purportedly canceled a separate AR glasses project in 2023, and rumor has it that work on a Vision Pro 2 has been put on hold in favor of trying to create a cheaper Vision Pro. Meanwhile, the Vision Pro itself has struggled to find a foothold.

The cancellation also means Apple is falling further behind the competition. CES 2025 was a playground for all sorts of smart glasses, and Google recently entered the fray with Android XR. Samsung has also thrown its hat in the ring with its Project Moohan headset. Last year, Meta showcased its Orion glasses, an AR glasses prototype with advanced Micro LED displays and a neural wristband for controls. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also been bullish on smart glasses as an ultimate vehicle for AI assistants, and the company is expected to release both Oakley-branded smart glasses for athletes and a higher-end version of its current Ray-Ban glasses with a display this year.