There’s a fun way to personalize your iPhone 17 Pro: tiny stickers around the camera. Social media is blowing up with pictures from people showing off how cool their handset looks with the new decorations.
The trend may have started in Korea, where it’s part of ponku — personalizing phones, cases, laptops, etc., with stickers. A recent iPhone 17 Pro ad made by a Korean wireless carrier certainly added fuel to the fire.
The unexpected iPhone trend of 2026: Tiny camera stickers
A controversial feature of the iPhone 17 Pro models is the camera plateau — a full-width horizontal bar that houses a triple-lens camera system and provides space for larger, more advanced imaging hardware without the corner wobble of the older square bumps.
The controversy comes from it spanning much of the back of the phone, leaving a lot of blank space, as many cases don’t cover the camera plateau. Creative people looked at that blank space and saw an empty canvas. A canvas that they filled with tiny stickers.
Take a look at this ad from SK Telecom to see some of what’s possible:
the iPhone 17 Pro camera plateau sticker trend is absolutely exploding and i LOVE IT
Apple Korea just made this ad directly promoting it! pic.twitter.com/BXOrTBrImk
— System Settings (@app_settings) December 31, 2025
Tiny camera stickers are taking over
Like the idea of decorating your iPhone with stickers but need some inspiration? Here’s what others have done with their iPhone 17 Pros:
always fascinating to get insights into how normal ppl are reacting to the new phone design lol pic.twitter.com/uKs3u9mNvV
— tom (@uncreativetom) September 26, 2025
— ♡ (@fairyprxncess) December 30, 2025
You don’t have to stop with the camera plateau. You can go all in with stickers all over the back of your iPhone:
— ♡ (@heart_jpg) December 30, 2025
Have fun!
Of course, to start your own iPhone ponku project, you’ll need tiny stickers. Here are a few suggestions:
- Cats, cats and more cats!
- And cute pups, too
- So many pandas
- An adorable variety pack
- Hearts and stars
If you’re horrified by the idea of putting stickers on your expensive iPhone, notice that many people are actually putting them on transparent cases or on lens protectors, not directly on the handset. There’ll be no problem when the time comes to resell your device.
Besides, there’s precedent. People have been decorating their Apple computers with stickers for decades. MacBooks especially get turned into personalized works of art.
Ed Hardy has been writing full-time about tech for 25 years, and using it for much longer than that. His intro to Apple was a Macintosh Classic II (which he still has), but now he uses a 13-inch iPad Pro as his primary computer. He’s written for NotebookReview, TabletPCReview, and Brighthand, as well as other sites.
