Was the design for the new iPhone17 leaked?

ABC's Mike Dobuski reports it was called a "dummy phone" that showed the new design. Plus, Apple's A.I. headaches continue

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, so let's switch over to Tech Tuesday. Love

(00:03):
checking in with ABC News tech reporter Mike Tubuski on
the Legacy Retirement Group dot Com phone line. Michael, good morning.
Thank you for the time before we get rolling on
some AI stuff. See that there were some rumors or
some leaks that have come to light about the iPhone
seventeen and the design. And we're several months away from
the new iPhone. I think those usually drop in September.

(00:25):
But have you heard about those rumors, the leaks what
the iPhone is going to look like?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, these are some leaks that come from Sonny Dixon,
who is a guy who generally is pretty reliable in
this space, and what he was able to find were
dummies of the iPhone seventeen, the upcoming iPhone, and what
dummies are in this context are essentially mockups of what
a future phone is gonna look like. They're usually made

(00:50):
out of plastic, sometimes they're made out of metal. They
don't have any sort of like internal tech stuff in them.
They're just basically the shape and dimensions of a phone.
And what they're meant to do is to be sent
out to people who make phone cases, people who make
phone accessories so that they can get all of their
stuff in line in order to ship alongside the new

(01:11):
phone when it does come out. Now this happens pretty frequently.
Dummies are out there. They are not as locked down
a sort of process as you know, Apple, you know,
would like I think normally. And that's where Sunny Dixon
was able to get his hands on these, and they
do tell us some kind of interesting things about where
the iPhone is going to go from a design perspective.

(01:33):
For one, instead of having a small camera bezel in
one corner of the iPhone, the camera array is going
to span the entire sort of width of the phone,
depending on which phone you have. And there's a couple
of different camera configurations in there as well, some kind of
ape the existing iPhone, Some are bigger departures from that.

(01:54):
There's you know, anywhere between one and three cameras on
these things. And something that has been rumored for a
while now there is a ultra thin iPhone, an iPhone
Air or an iPhone slim. We don't know what it's
going to be called, but this is a rumor that's
been out there for a little while. An iPhone that
is you know, maybe two thirds the sort of width

(02:15):
of a standard iPhone what we're used to right now,
something that's a little bit lighter presumably that will join
the lineup as well. Of course, the big caveat with
all of this stuff is that these are just rumors
leaks at this point. A lot can change sure now
and when the iPhone launches, but even still kind of
fun to talk about, kind of interesting to get a
look at.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah, everyone looks forward to a new phone every couple
of years. And I mean the camera configuration, whether it's
two lenses or three lenses, and how they're set up.
There's only so many options there are they vertical, are
the diagonal, that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
But I will say, for one, I have an iPhone,
and the one thing I really don't like about is
the fact that the cameras are all in one corner
because if you lay your phone down on the table,
it kind of rocks back and forth. It's like kind
of annoying.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
It does the the camera bump is what they call it.
And the thinner phone though, that's interesting because when you
have an iPhone, then you add a case that's worth anything.
I mean a lot of these cases are all. A
lot of them are just cosmetics, but there are some.
You know, you get a nice otter box case that's
kind of heavy and thick, I mean you put it
in your pocket, it's it's not always comfortable, and it's

(03:17):
big and bulky. But if you're tell me there's an
iPhone that is super thin, I think it's going to
be really attractive to a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, and it's something that we've seen Apple do in
the past, right, I mean, this all kind of started
with the MacBook Air. I think a lot of people
will remember the original commercial for that. They pulled the
laptop out of a Manila folder. It's like really cool.
And then there's a new iPad Pro, which is purported
to be the thinnest Apple product ever, that is a
very thin device. It kind of gets very close to

(03:45):
that you know, tab of glass idea that Apple was
throwing around when they were first showing off the iPad.
Just this very you know, thin sort of screen that's
light and easy to hold, but still very vibrant and
has a lot of technology.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
As you say, way too early, they get too excited.
We're several months away from the iPhone seventeen speaking with
Mike Tbuski, ABC News Tech Reporter and another story about
Meta kind of getting rid of the fact checkers and
kind of switching them out in favor of a new
system called community notes. What's the story there.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, this is their new way of moderating damaging or
harmful content on their platforms, that is to say, Facebook, Instagram,
and threads. As you said, it's called community notes. These
are going to be basically small boxes of information that
appear next to posts on those platforms. They're designed to
not fact check necessarily, but to add additional context or

(04:41):
correct small things that might lead to actual damaging, lasting
harm among the communities of people on that platform. These notes,
as opposed to being written by a community of subject
matter experts as they used to be in the fact
checking system, They're going to be written by a group
of volunteers. Meta says that these are people who have
signed up, who have volunteered, who are over eighteen, who

(05:04):
have a working phone number, and they have about a
two hundred thousand person wait list of people who are
signing up for this program in order to, you know,
kind of help with this idea. This is the same
system that's used by X formerly Twitter, and Meta says
it's actually borrowing some technology from X as they learn
how to roll this new system out, specifically an algorithm

(05:26):
that's going to be used to ensure that the volunteers
who write these notes come from a range of backgrounds.
The idea of course being that people who normally disagree,
they're going to have to agree on the content of
a note before it is added to any piece of
content that's going viral on those platforms.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
So it's just a it's just context. So if somebody
makes a comment in a section that is maybe a
little out there, then somebody can come in and add
a little sticky note if you will too, and say, okay,
well this is one viewpoint, but the other viewpoint is this,
and maybe there's some missing sourcing or here, whatever is there.
Can you keep adding to that? Like what if I
want a community note a community note and say, well,

(06:04):
actually the original poster was correct, Well, I think you
would have to be a part of the community notes
system first, you would have to be a part of
the program.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
And yeah, I mean this is another concern with this system, right,
is that sure subject matter experts kind of you know,
know their stuff, right, and they can kind of, you know,
add a definitive ruling on on post from that that
is going viral, whereas you know, kind of just communities
of people on these platforms are just everyday people at

(06:34):
the end of the day, and they are fallible. And
in addition to that, it takes a while for these
notes to kind of be agreed upon the specific wording
and so on, and things go viral very quickly, which
means that you know, a note could appear on a
piece of content kind of after all the damage has
been done at this point. That is something that we've
seen on X. We've also seen people game this system,

(06:54):
you know, on that platform as well. Just one of
the many things that medics going to need to figure out.
As it's Art's rolling out this new system starting today.
You're likely not going to see them on any posts
in the next few weeks. Meta says it's going to
kind of keep this behind closed doors in the short term,
but they're starting testing today.