The latest "leak" from someone impersonating a now-defunct leaker appears to be nothing more than painted lens covers, especially considering the modern iPhone design has a unibody case.
Majin Bu was once a prominent Apple leaker who had some accurate leaks. After attempting to sell cases for an unreleased iPhone, the leaker disappeared, and a copycat has risen in its stead.
It still isn't clear to me why anyone is covering the clearly fake account, but 9to5Mac shared the latest post about iPhone colors. The publication did call out the potential of the account being fake, but it did serve the post as possible thanks to corroborating previous color rumors.
However, something seemed wrong about this photo. I wanted to ignore the clearly fake account, but then it hit me.
The iPhone 17 Pro design uses a unibody back case with a cutout for MagSafe that's covered by glass. The camera plateau isn't a separate component.
A two-second reverse image search revealed my suspicion — these appear to be identical to camera protectors that stick onto the existing camera plateau. Wherever the image originated from, likely Weibo, the fake leaker posted it as an iPhone 18 Pro color leak.
This image is being passed as an iPhone component leak by a fake account we're deliberately not linking to here.
Looking back, AppleInsider also pointed out the potential of leaked components being third-party accessories. Perhaps these are color samples, but they seem absurdly detailed versus making a simple blank.
Ignore the fakes
AppleInsider has the rumor rating system for this explicit purpose. We'd love to not have to cover such blatantly fake impersonation accounts, but when the rest of the industry runs to cover even the most ambiguous of rumors, we have to tag along for the ride.
At the least, we do get the chance to call "bs" when we see it.
The fake account has posted stolen content from other leakers, usually ones originating from Weibo. While the original Majin Bu had similar problems, this one is much more blatant in their actions.
Accessories like this from Uyiton on Amazon exist, though we've colored it deep wine for illustration
They have posted clearly manipulated or even AI-generated images of fake products, like an iPhone Air with two camera lenses. I don't know why publications feel like they should ignore those while still giving air to what could be considered "more reasonable" leaks.
The iPhone 18 Pro will likely have new colors, and one of the rumored colors is a deep wine red. We'll see if that turns out to be true, but one thing we do know today is that we shouldn't be paying attention to fake accounts.
