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Would Steve Jobs Have Allowed A Protruding Camera?

K

Kurso

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 10, 2013
304
3
I was really excited about the iPhone 6 announcement until they actually showed the phone. I'm happy with the iPhone 5s but I love gadgets so I would have picked up the iPhone 6 just because its the newer model. In fact I'm in the minority that thinks the iPhone 5s is the perfect size for a phone. Knowing the iPhone 6 was going to be bigger was not a selling point to me but I mentally accepted it before today.

I have never placed a case on any of my previous iPhones because I like the slim uniform feel and the beauty of the product. With the protruding camera a case become all but required to provide surface uniformity. I can't imagine that a protruding camera would have been acceptable to Steve Jobs and it's disappointing that Tim Cook and team have allowed this in the iPhone 6 design.

If the iPhone 5s can support Apple Pay via the Apple Watch I think I'll skip the iPhone 6 because of the camera.
 
If he wanted a phone this thin i think he would have allowed it.
it doesn't bother me at all because it keeps the back slightly raised when you set it down going naked :D
 
Kurso said:
I was really excited about the iPhone 6 announcement until they actually showed the phone. I'm happy with the iPhone 5s but I love gadgets so I would have picked up the iPhone 6 just because its the newer model. In fact I'm in the minority that thinks the iPhone 5s is the perfect size for a phone. Knowing the iPhone 6 was going to be bigger was not a selling point to me but I mentally accepted it before today.

I have never placed a case on any of my previous iPhones because I like the slim uniform feel and the beauty of the product. With the protruding camera a case become all but required to provide surface uniformity. I can't imagine that a protruding camera would have been acceptable to Steve Jobs and it's disappointing that Tim Cook and team have allowed this in the iPhone 6 design.

If the iPhone 5s can support Apple Pay via the Apple Watch I think I'll skip the iPhone 6 because of the camera.
Click to expand...

I don't know about that a 0.2mm protrusion on a tiny part of the device will not even be perceptible in a pocket.
 
Kurso said:
Would Steve Jobs Have Allowed A Protruding Camera?

I was really excited about the iPhone 6 announcement until they actually showed the phone. I'm happy with the iPhone 5s but I love gadgets so I would have picked up the iPhone 6 just because its the newer model. In fact I'm in the minority that thinks the iPhone 5s is the perfect size for a phone. Knowing the iPhone 6 was going to be bigger was not a selling point to me but I mentally accepted it before today.

I have never placed a case on any of my previous iPhones because I like the slim uniform feel and the beauty of the product. With the protruding camera a case become all but required to provide surface uniformity. I can't imagine that a protruding camera would have been acceptable to Steve Jobs and it's disappointing that Tim Cook and team have allowed this in the iPhone 6 design.

If the iPhone 5s can support Apple Pay via the Apple Watch I think I'll skip the iPhone 6 because of the camera.
Click to expand...

Steve was an ultra-perfectionist, while Tim appears to be a few shades more pragmatic. The three devices introduced today are imho all visually striking, and at this point I'm not going to lose any sleep over what Steve might or might not have done. Let the man rest in peace.
 
Steve is no longer with us, so we will never know what he would have "allowed"
 
I've been thinking all along too, that Steve probably never would let that happen. You indeed need a cover to make it flush, why the even make it that much thinner, when the end user has to add bulk anyways? Come on Apple, you can do much much better than that imo.
 
I really wish Steve could come back and kick everyone in the nuts who asks a "would steve have allowed this?" type question :D
 
: Deep sigh :

I admired Steve and his vision as well as everything he's done for Apple. I even call him one of my biggest inspirations and motivators still to this day. With that being said we HAVE to stop thinking/questioning "Well what would Steve do", It's irrelevant.

Like Tim said Steve's DNA will always be the foundation of Apple & I truly believe that. His legacy will go on for many decades and hopefully centuries untarnished. But asking "Would he approve" in every single thread (not just you) is pointless and won't bring him back to us.

You won't like every product. You won't like every design. It's fine. We all have a choice. But sadly we can never bring Steve back. . .

And I truly hate saying that.
 
Would Steve Jobs Have Allowed A Protruding Camera?

Why wasn't a protruding camera a problem for the iPod touch a device rarely kept in a case?

I do think it's funny Apples measurements weren't from the widest part (camera) when measuring thinness though. How many times have you measured how thick something is by measuring the thinnest part?
 
it makes me sad to see all the posts about what would steve jobs do, just shows what an amazing + great impact he has had on so many people! he knew his time was ending and i am sure that he passed on his wealth of knowledge to the best of his ability, he was an iconic genius and will be in history books - as grumpy as he was he loved apple! good and bad things in life happen for reasons, a lot of times we just don't know why - we will never know what he would have done with apple, nor were we meant to know - celebrate his legacy.....
 
My gut feeling is that this is one thing Steve really wouldn't have allowed. He'd have either made the whole phone slightly thicker or put on a crappier lens (sadly, I think the latter would have been the result since Steve seemed pretty obsessed with unnecessary thinness)

I also suspect we'd be stuck with 3.5" phones if Steve were still around.
 
We really can't answer that, but I'd conjecture that he wouldn't. I think there comes a point where thin is too thin, and that boundary was reached on the iPhone 5 and broached with the 6. Clearly with protruding camera it alters the clean lines.
 
Being such a thin phone, a TWiT commentator yesterday was saying that it's not unexpected to have a little protrusion because of the new optical stabilization element of the camera.

So I'm going with that.

However it's to the point where I'd rather have the form factor thickness of my iPhone 5S remain to have the afforded elongated battery life that a phone the size of iPhone 6/Plus + its more efficient processor energy use. Perhaps having iPhone 5S thickness would have alleviated the need for protrusion, however.

I'm not an engineer so I could only hypothesize that point.
 
Like others have said when phones get so thin that's what happens. Of course they probably could have kept it flush with the back and sacrificed camera performance.
 
I don't think Steve would have settled for a protruding camera.

Apple's obsession with thin-ness is getting so bad they can barely get the parts to fit anymore.

Time to start accepting the current thin profile and using the space gained to improve battery life and put better parts (like these high quality cameras) in without things sticking out of the shell.
 
Don't most people use cases?

I use them now for the trade-in, which seems to be often :D
 
cynics said:
Why wasn't a protruding camera a problem for the iPod touch a device rarely kept in a case?

I do think it's funny Apples measurements weren't from the widest part (camera) when measuring thinness though. How many times have you measured how thick something is by measuring the thinnest part?
Click to expand...

It's a common practice in other commercial electronics, particularly cameras. The dimensions given don't include protrusions (like the viewfinder or, in rare cases, the handgrip). This may have improved in the past couple of years, but Sony was particularly bad about this with their early mirrorless cameras not too long ago. Compared to that practice, discounting 0.2 mm that cover a very small portion of the total surface area of the body.
 
Not only would he have not allowed it, he would have had a meltdown at even the suggestion of a protruding camera. He would then go on to insult that person's mother followed by termination. :D
 
We didn't "know" Steve Jobs of 2014. He was a real person, not an icon. His views would have evolved in ways we can't anticipate over another 3 years. It's time to let the people running the show now do it without living up to speculation over what someone the public only knew from his public face would have "thought" or "allowed."
 
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