Hilarious $3 iPhone Case Tricks People Into Thinking You Have an iPhone 17

I don’t know who to credit for this but I have to think that someone in China first came up with this design. Available on AliExpress (although I’m not sure how much things would cost with the new tariff regime), this iPhone case gives your smartphone a camera bar at the back, not too different from the one we’re expecting on the upcoming iPhone 17, which should launch in September this year.

The case’s camera bar is purely cosmetic, given that it does absolutely nothing for the phone itself, apart from probably providing a small stash space for money or photographs. I’m not entirely sure why but all the cases come with a MagSafe cutout at the back too, probably to allow the Apple logo on your phone to shine through. Why not just print an Apple logo on the case? Well apart from inviting a bunch of lawsuits, this method works out to be a tad bit easier because the cutout helps save on material costs too.

I was scrolling through Threads and I saw an extremely surprised user saying he spotted an iPhone 17 in the wild, with blurry paparazzi-style photos of a woman rocking a phone with the camera bar. Almost instantly, the comments section was filled with AliExpress links to this case, which can trick most people into thinking you’ve somehow managed to get your hands on a sample of the unreleased phone. It’s a lot like those cases that add an extra faux lens to your camera setup, making it look like you’ve got a 3-lens iPhone Pro when you’ve got just the regular 2-lens iPhone.

This case (available here) is dirt cheap, priced at around $3.3 USD, and available for phones going all the way back to the iPhone 11. If you find yourself around tech journalists or any tech enthusiast, I highly recommend buying one just to watch their jaws drop as you whip your faux iPhone 17 out in the middle of a conversation. Sure, the sheer horror won’t last long since this case isn’t as convincing as I’d like to hope. But then again, for a phone case that’s cheaper than eggs, what more can you expect??