Orange iPhone 17 Pro Max turns pink: Another manufacturing defect with Apple's new iPhone?
In case you've been living under a rock, when Apple introduced the iPhone 17 series, it also added a new orange colour into the mix, sparking a range of reactions from the tech community at large. However, Cosmic Orange certainly seems to have its fans, like one Reddit user, u/DakAttack316, who purchased a Cosmic Orange iPhone 17 Pro Max only to have it spontaneously start changing colour one day.
Only the aluminium parts of the iPhone in question have discoloured, leaving its owner with a two-tone design that's mostly pink with some orange highlights along the antenna lines and on the Ceramic Shield portion of the back panel. The discolouration process apparently happened gradually, starting off only slightly "rose gold" when the user initially posted about it (post now removed) on October 4.
We have so far not yet reviewed the iPhone 17 Pro Max, but we praised the vanilla iPhone 17 in our review for its impressive features and performance in our recent review.
The user has yet to contact Apple support or go to an Apple Store for assistance, so there is no concrete explanation for the chameleon act. Theories in the comments, however, range from the banal — like chemical reactions to the OPs skin prolonged exposure to UV, which OP denies — to outlandish claims like radiation exposure from orphan sources. Of course, there are the usual accusations that the poster has manipulated images of the iPhone or deliberately tampered with the anodising for attention online, and to that the poster has said "I could not imagine a sadder existence than photoshopping iPhone pics." There has been at least one other report of this happening to another orange iPhone 17 Pro Max (via @TheGalox on X).
A chemical reaction or a botched dye or anodising process seem likely, although the discolouration would likely be far more widespread than one single recorded instance if it were simply a bad batch of pigment. The most likely explanation is that there is some combination of environmental variables and an error in Apple's new anodising process. Variables like heat and similar cannot be ruled out but seem unlikely, given that brightly coloured anodised parts are regularly exposed to temperatures far exceeding the safe limits of human skin contact without issue.
This wouldn't be the first time Apple has had issues with the iPhone 17 series, with early reports of noticeable scratches on the aluminium backs of iPhone 17 models giving rise to Scratchgate.
If you're an iPhone 17 Pro Max owner, you might want to get hold of a case, like the Apple TechWoven case (curr. $59 on Amazon) to avoid scratches.
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