iPhone 17 Slim could be 30% thinner than the iPhone 16

Backing up one of the several rumors about the thickness of the expected iPhone 17 Slim, a new report claims that it around a third thinner than some other iPhone models.

Some previous reports of the thickness of the forthcoming slimmer iPhone in the iPhone 17 range have insisted that battery issues mean it can be no less than 6mm. However, one report from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has claimed it will be 5.5mm, and now a leak from "Ice Universe" backs that up.

According to a post on Chinese social media site Weibo, the iPhone 17 Slim (in translation), "has a camera bump of 4.0mm and a total of 9.5mm."

Apple excludes the camera bump when reporting the thickness of an iPhone, so that the iPhone 16 is officially listed as being 7.8mm thick. The iPhone 16 Pro Max is 8.25mm, again with the camera bump excluded

Assuming the leaker is instead counting the camera bump, he or she is saying that the overall thickness of the iPhone will be just 5.5mm. If correct, this would make it 29.49% thinner than the iPhone 16, and whole 33.33% thinner than the iPhone 16 Pro Max.

The leak's claim of the camera bump being 4.0mm also means that the lens protrusion will be less than on the top of the range iPhone 17 Pro Max. The current iPhone 16 Pro Max has a camera bump of 4.3mm.

There's no indication of where the dimensions were sourced, but this leaker has generally been known to be reliable. Ice Universe is the source for the recent rumor that the iPhone 17 Pro Max may be thicker than its predecessors, possibly to include a larger battery.

This would make the difference between the slimmer iPhone 17 and the top of the range model even greater. But it would still not mean that the new, slimmer iPhone will be Apple's thinnest device yet.

Instead, that title belongs to the 2024 iPad Pro, whose 13-inch model is just 5.1mm.