Apple’s own Dictionary app defines plateau as “a state of little or no change following a period of activity or progress.” Which makes it unfortunate that one of Apple’s most prominent pieces of unwanted industrial design now bears that name. In fact, two new iPhones no longer sport a camera ‘bump’ – they now have a camera ‘plateau.’
To be fair, Apple never officially called that area a bump anyway. The company preferred subtler euphemisms like ‘camera housing’ or ‘camera module,’ as if words alone might disguise the awkward reality and wish the area away. And that makes sense. When you spend a keynote bragging about how slim and sleek your devices are, a massive chunk sticking out of their backs is a contradiction you can’t spin.
This year, the contradiction is impossible to ignore. The iPhone 17 Pro’s three-camera array now spans the entire width of the phone. The iPhone Air too comes with its own camera bar. Both protrude in very obvious fashion, undermining the elegance of Apple’s designs. On the Air, it’s tolerable. On the Pro – never exactly a beauty queen in the first place – the plateau makes an already ungainly design even bulkier.
Of course, the notion of a camera bar isn’t just Apple’s burden. Android devices – most notably Google’s Pixel line – have embraced it too, allowing manufacturers to cram in more and better optics. At first glance, Apple’s move looks like the same trick, along with slapping a new name on an old problem, like when a selfie camera notch was magically rebranded as Dynamic Island. But just like Dynamic Island, with all its gloopy, animating glory, the iPhone camera plateau is far more than it first appears.
Although the camera plateau doesn’t morph and change like Dynamic Island, it has fundamentally reshaped the internals of Apple’s phones, and it’s more than a mere home for cameras. On the Pro, it doubles as a means to dissipate heat and boosts connectivity by integrating antennas around the perimeter. On both phones, Apple has shifted major components into the space, such as the logic board, the A19 Pro chip, storage, and the speaker. This frees up room in the main body for a bigger battery.
So perhaps this ‘plateau’ isn’t the dead-end the dictionary definition suggests. Nor is it Apple giving up on hiding the bump and rebranding it. Maybe, in its own lumpy way, it’s progress.