The Audacity of Case Makers Flaunting the iPhone 17 Has Me Suspicious

Last week, I received multiple emails from different case makers showing supposed designs for the iPhone 17 series. Then this week, that ramped up to Dbrand, Moment, UGreen, and basically every case maker at IFA showing the same thing, all flaunting the same design. Apple is historically excellent at keeping a secret, so what changed this year?

All of these designs look pretty similar and feature a much larger, Google Pixel-like camera bar on the rear with the rest of the phone looking significantly slimmer than the current iPhones. It’s definitely a look, but at least they aren’t as outrageous as some of the earlier rumor-based renders we saw that had an off-center Apple logo and a two-tone color scheme.

But that aside, these designs that case makers are flaunting do all share the same general vibe. And I say flaunting, because at least in the case of Dbrand, it’s pretty overt. On the case-maker’s home page, the link to view the iPhone 17 cases reads, “Sorry Tim,” which obviously refers to Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Moment is almost as audacious. Designs for its iPhone 17 cases are visible on the company’s home page and a dedicated pre-order page.

“Every September, there’s usually a new iPhone…save 25% by reserving your Moment gear early,” the company says.

Early this morning, UGreen announced a new set of Qi2 accessories and one of the images has, very obviously, an iPhone 17 model in the frame.

Every year there are leaks and rumors surrounding Apple’s next iPhone and those are typically based on early renders, dummy models, and supposed dimensions that case makers get their hands on so they can spool up manufacturing and have them ready for launch. None of them, typically, know exactly what the new iPhone is going to look like.

I don’t think that changed this year, but what has changed is how loudly these case makers and accessory brands are acting as though they do in fact know what it looks like. The Verge‘s report from IFA shows that everyone is basically working off the same supposed designs and doing so without a care in the world. It’s like they all got the same memo to share the same stuff at about the same time, all before the official announcement.

That’s weird! Something is up. Did one case maker do it, everyone else saw Apple say nothing, so then the dam broke? Perhaps Apple is trying a new marketing strategy that gets people talking about the phone whether or not it’s actually indicative of the final design. Maybe the new iPhone 17 series won’t look anything like these models, which is why Apple doesn’t care.

Or, is the truth a lot less exciting? According to Moment, it didn’t really have any idea other accessory makers would go with this same strategy, but says that it does make sense.

“Moment can’t start production until the day of the event since we have to be 100% sure on the camera system being precisely fit with our lenses, hence why our gear always takes a bit longer to get to customers than most cases. But as for why did we release them early this year? I think it’s a multitude of reasons we’re seeing it across the industry,” the company explains to PetaPixel.

“There’s no official hardware program with Apple, so there’s no NDAs anyone is breaking. Tariffs have made running businesses harder this year, there’s more pressure on every campaign, and there’s no longer any margin for error. Releasing pre-reservations gives us data on what quantity mixes we need to order between all the case models, colors, and then our accessories that are model specific. Since there’s only a 10-day window from phones announced to landing, these extra few days can be vital to getting cases on time and avoiding stock problems,” they continue. “A majority of case manufacturers don’t have any hardware contact at Apple, so to develop camera cases every year we’re forced to look online of the rumors. In order to make it to shelves right at or slowly after phones getting to customers/stores, most manufacturers need to start production even before the iPhone is announced and if they were wrong on the rumors, they scrap the cases and restart.

“Lots of our customers are looking to us prior to the announcement on how we plan to support the phones. This is just our answer to them, and for reserving it early they’ll save 25%.”

I guess we, just like all these case makers, are going to find out next week just how close they got to it.

Update 5/5: Added quotes from Moment.