Honor Is Making iPhones Now, Just With Android Inside

There is borrowing design inspiration, and then there is releasing official product photos that make your phone look nearly indistinguishable from Apple’s flagship at first glance.

Honor has done the latter.

The company has dropped official images of the Honor 600 Pro ahead of its imminent launch, expected this week,  and the pictures leave little room for ambiguity. The camera module, the color palette, the matte finish, the overall proportions: this phone has studied the iPhone 17 Pro closely and made its admiration very visible.

Three Colors, One Very Familiar Mood

The Honor 600 Pro arrives in three shades: Orange, White, and Black. All three carry a matte finish on the rear panel with Honor’s branding placed cleanly at the bottom, minimal, understated, and deliberate.

The Orange variant is where the resemblance peaks. Apple introduced a Desert Titanium tone with the iPhone 17 Pro series last year, and Honor’s Orange lands in a strikingly similar visual territory, warm, muted, and premium-feeling rather than loud. Side by side, casual observers would need a moment.

The White and Black versions carry more of Honor’s own identity. They read as cleaner, more restrained interpretations of the design language rather than direct color matches, giving the lineup some range without abandoning the visual coherence that ties the three together.

The Camera Module: Inspired, But Not Identical

The rear camera system is where the iPhone 17 Pro influence is most concentrated,  and also where Honor draws its one meaningful design distinction.

The Honor 600 Pro adopts a wide, rectangular camera island with a triple-lens arrangement that mirrors Apple’s layout in both scale and positioning. The module is large, centered-left, and visually dominant, exactly the aesthetic Apple normalized with the iPhone 17 Pro series.

The key difference: the middle lens is slightly oval rather than perfectly round. That deviation is not accidental and not aesthetic. It confirms the presence of a periscope telephoto sensor, a component whose optical assembly requires more lateral space than a standard round lens housing. Honor has essentially used Apple’s design grammar while accommodating hardware that Apple’s current Pro lineup does not carry in the same form.

It is a subtle tell, but it reveals that this is not pure imitation. The design choice follows the hardware requirement.

A Pattern Taking Shape at Honor

The Honor 600 Pro does not exist in isolation. It is the latest step in a deliberate design pivot the company began with the Honor 500 series, a lineup exclusive to Chinese customers that drew heavily from the iPhone Air’s slim, refined aesthetic.

Now, with the 600 Pro, Honor is applying the same philosophy to its N series flagship for a broader audience. The message is consistent: Honor has decided that Apple’s current design direction represents the aesthetic standard for premium smartphones, and it is building toward that benchmark openly rather than obliquely.

This is not unusual in the Android market. Samsung, OPPO, and vivo have all absorbed elements of Apple’s design language over the years. What makes Honor’s approach notable is the directness of it; the Orange colorway is not inspired by Desert Titanium, it is Desert Titanium’s closest Android neighbor, and the speed at which the company has moved to align its lineup with Apple’s most recent shift.

Launch Is Days Away

Honor has confirmed the 600 Pro will launch this week, with full specifications, pricing, and availability details expected at the official unveiling. The camera hardware, particularly the periscope sensor suggested by that oval lens shape, will be a key point of interest, as will how Honor positions the device in terms of price relative to the competition it is so visibly referencing.

For consumers weighing a premium Android purchase, the Honor 600 Pro is shaping up as a phone that offers the iPhone 17 Pro’s design language at what is likely to be a more accessible price point. Whether the internals justify the aesthetic ambition is the question this week’s launch will answer.

The photos, at least, have already made their argument.