iPhone 18 adopts iPhone 17 Pro design: How fake leaks generate clicks
In the age of nearly perfect AI image editors it’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish reality from fakes. Particularly when it comes to rumors based on leaks, it’s often nearly impossible to determine with certainty whether alleged leaks are real or not. What often helps in such cases is what’s known as “common sense” and of course a search for the real source of the image material in question.
Along the way, you’ll often find plenty of clues that at least shift the odds for or against it being a fake. For example, a striking number of images are currently circulating on social media suggesting that Apple’s successor to the iPhone 17 will adopt the camera design of the iPhone 17 Pro, but without the third telephoto camera. Even leaker accounts that were previously considered quite reliable, such as MajinBu’s on X, have posted alleged images of a real iPhone 18, which is apparently “already in the hands of testers”:
The sources reveal more
Given the ever-improving AI image generators, it’s hardly surprising that these alleged photos of a real iPhone 18 test device are difficult to expose as fakes at first glance—or even at second glance. However, common sense raises doubts about whether photos of test devices for an iPhone 18 that apparently will not launch for roughly another nine months can already be real. If you look for earlier sources of these images, it also becomes clear that the current MajinBu account definitely no longer offers the same quality as before, as some have already criticized quite openly.
For example, the image of this silver “iPhone 18” comes from the AppleLeaker account, which openly describes it not as a leak but as an image edited with the Object Eraser tool in macOS 27. Quite obviously, the third camera of an iPhone 17 Pro was removed here to visualize that Apple could adopt the iPhone 17 Pro design for the iPhone 18—which is perfectly legitimate, as long as this is made transparent.
Notorious fake leaker is involved
But not all sources handle things this way. When searching for the source of the other two photos, you’ll also find a source that brings back memories of past Samsung leaks. The “Schrödinger” account on X has already drawn attention multiple times during the Galaxy S26 leak phase for AI-generated hands-on images and fake Geekbench leaks and it apparently also provided the template for this supposed iPhone 18 leak. Here, the edited image—presumably also of an iPhone 17 Pro—is being sold as an “iPhone Air 2” with a question mark as a “tease.”
Is there more to the iPhone 18 design leak?
Quite obviously, there are currently no realistic leaks regarding the iPhone 18’s design; these are all modified images being widely shared on social media—including, incidentally, on the Chinese platform Weibo, where we also searched for sources. Instead, we discovered the promotional image below, which, of course, isn’t real either. All of this shows how a narrative based on supposed leaks can spread quickly without any realistic base. But could an iPhone 18 in the iPhone 17 Pro design even be realistic? That’s a perfectly valid question—after all, Apple has, on several occasions in the past, passed Pro features down to the base iPhone model a year later, for instance the Dynamic Island or the Action Button.
So it’s not entirely unrealistic to assume that the camera design of the current Pro models will also be adopted in 2026, especially since the iPhone 17 camera design currently doesn’t exactly fit in well with iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro or iPhone 17 Pro Max. Whether Apple will simply remove the telefoto to make the next iPhone 18 as the current leaks suggest remains to be seen. A large Pro camera bar for two cameras would be a huge waste of space. So it’s possible that Apple will instead adopt the iPhone Air design for the iPhone 18, which is also expected to offer room for two cameras on the iPhone Air 2 and will also be used for the iPhone Ultra.
Source(s)
MajinBu on X, @leakerapple, @phonefuturist, NekoMichiUBC, own research
Image: @stitchgadget
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