Sketchy report from Apple offices in Israel says 2017 phone is being referred to as the iPhone 8

While Apple’s naming convention would normally suggest that next year’s phone would be the iPhone 7s, all the rumors are pointing to a fairly radical redesign – with an all-glass casing and full-screen face with embedded Home button the main changes expected. For that reason, it seems virtually certain that Apple will break the convention.

Various names have been suggested as possible candidates, including iPhone 8, iPhone X and even just iPhone. Now a sketchy report from one of Apple’s offices in Israel claims that the phone is being referred to as the iPhone 8.

Speaking to Business Insider outside Apple’s Herzliya office at Maskit Street 12, [an] Apple employee said staff in Israel are working on what’s coming “next” in Apple’s product line, giving a specific mention to “iPhone 8.” The worker used the term “iPhone 8” unprompted in our conversation.

Tim Cook attended the opening of the Herzliya offices last year where around 800 Apple employees work. It’s believed the facility works on chip design, with Israel a key location for chip development. The offices are close to a NAND flash chip specialist Apple acquired in 2011, with other chip experts working at an Apple R&D center in Haifa.

However, while there’s no doubting the importance of the facility, there’s no reason to believe that its employees have any insight into the name of next year’s iPhone. Naming is a marketing decision handled back in Cupertino, with Apple using codenames for products in development. It’s far more likely that employees working on the project are simply assuming that will be the name and referring to it informally by that name.