Okay guys, I hate to do this, but I have to say one thing about the fact that the newest iPhone is being announced tomorrow. And it’s not about things that everyone on the internet are saying are going to be in it, or whether it’s going to be called “The new iPhone” or iPhone 5 or iPhone 6. I’d like to briefly debate myself a little bit about what it is going to look like. Now, all of the important blogs have been all over this story for months, with leaked designs that look something like this (left, both black and white below): Simply type in “iPhone 5 rumor” into an image search for pages of this design.
Now, it is pretty likely that the next iPhone will look similar to this or even exactly like it. But if that is the case, I will be really disappointed. This design looks extremely iterative, and as far as I can tell doesn’t follow Apple’s design aesthetic at all. With the rumours that the body will be made from one piece of steel or possibly aluminum, the gaps in the steel band on the side of the phone (seen on the left) aren’t very likely. Even though these gaps are to separate the antennae which make up the various radio transmitters for the phone’s wireless signals, you have to imagine that if they are building the phone out of one piece of metal, they would have found an alternate, better way to make this work. While the two-tone design does seem to work better in the top photo in black, making that particular design a far more likely choice, I very sincerely hope that they go with a different design. If you search for “matte iPhone 5” on images, you will come up with the design I very much hope they settled on. For that to be the case, one of two things must have happened at some point. Either Apple put out some older prototypes and let the rumour mill take over (which would be really great and bad-ass on their part), or somebody saw one of the design ideas and decided to make parts and prototypes on their own, looking very official and which fit the existing dimensions of the rumoured device. I have a feeling this is much more likely, since a prototype device getting out of Apple’s factory that early and that frequently seems really unlikely, coupled with the fact that I think they can design something much better.
Personally, out of all the images I have seen, this one is my personal favorite: (sourced from http://www.spiritjb.org, with a video (which is still likely not real)). This matte finish and very clean lines and design scream Apple, and getting rid of the ridges which exist on the current 4/4S design needed to happen. Ideally this device will be less prone to breaking its glass (though I have personally only ever scratched the back of my phone, I have spoken to many people who have cracked screens and refuse to remove their new phones from Otterboxes).
There’s not long to wait now, as of 6 EST we’re only 19 hours from Apple’s annoucement. I, for one, will be watching intently to see what the new phone looks like, and I may even write a little tomorrow while I’m eagerly awaiting the news. I know most people don’t follow this kind of news all that intently, or follow it at all, so I’d like to shine some light on why I do, and what I gain from it. Should be fun! See you then.
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