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Apparent Working 4.7-Inch iPhone 6 Reveals Home Screen Layout, Passbook Icon With Payments [Updated]

RnSK said:
Jimrod, I really think a lot of why Apple has stuck with what I'll call the "iconic design" is because to them, that's what makes an 'iPhone Product' an iPhone...so much so that they have a design patent for the front facia configuration.

For them it isn't about if or not it is technically possible to get rid of the extra. If they did, it wouldn't 'look like an iPhone'.

Does that makes sense to you...even if you don't prefer it?

-K
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Oh completely, I'm a product designer myself and even now, working on a range of Bluetooth speakers I'm stuck with the historical baggage of the company and "old fashioned" speaker designs and expectations fitting with new tech and functionality. You have to keep an identity.

I think the difficulty Apple has is that the original iPhone was a great design, set a new standard. The "4" evolved that brilliantly as an evolution of the form factor. The "5" was a less successful evolution as the form factor, size in particular started to change, golden ratios didn't apply any more, length altered and nice touches like camera placement in line with corner radii were lost. The weight and "thinness" were handy counters to the less successful aspects of the design though.

The 6 has nice elements - "thinness" and rounded edges will be winners for sure but they're now starting to compromise the design ethos even further with protruding cameras and ever-uglier antenna breaks. The length due to home button and symmetry is starting to look more and more awkward. It's time to either evolve more or even go back to the drawing board and innovate once again. "thinness" is a nice selling point but it's no game-changer any more and is compromised by the overly long form factor of the 6 which hangs on to previous generations design elements a little too strongly.


In my opinion, for what it's worth! :D
 
mKTank said:
People that think this phone is nice for its bezel clearly haven't ever used a phone with a thin bezel. The skin almost always folds over the edge of the screen when you're holding the phone...accidental input galore.

If you want pretentious thin bezels for the sake of having a phone looking cool on a table, go for the Sharp. But the bezels are there for a reason. After owning the LG G2, I can never go back to having a phone that's over-obsessive about its thin bezels.
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I totally get that, the issues with thin bezels and usability, but I also think it's possibly to largely get around those issues with software as multi-touch gesturing could be used intelligently to null the inputs from the thumb pad part of the palm when the phone is held.
 
For them it isn't about if or not it is technically possible to get rid of the extra. If they did, it wouldn't 'look like an iPhone'.
Click to expand...

There is an element of that, however, you can still reduce the bezels and re-design something which still has the style elements that is associated with an iPhone as you say.

If the iPhone 6 is as all these rumour leaks portray, then I do agree with some of the thoughts that the bezel size is beginning to become a slightly tired design in general. I'm not saying it should be done away with, but I think it could be reduced at the top without sacrificing the essence of what makes it look like an iPhone.

( I also that so many leaks on the iPhone 6 are a distraction away from other announcements ... almost like Apple aren't too worried as its keeping other things more secretive. )
 
mKTank said:
People that think this phone is nice for its bezel clearly haven't ever used a phone with a thin bezel.
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I think it also has an appeal because of that SciFi look...and accidental touch filtering/edge swipe detection is something they've had implemented for awhile.

They aren't going to do it until they are satisfied. Chasing trends isn't in their DNA unless they can "level up". Such is the way of a company that makes its mark via innovation as opposed to pure invention, tho they do a lot of that as well.

I like to think that one day, Apple will get there too, but I imagine such a device is about 3 years out; they'd have to be able to come up with a satisfactory implementation of their screen-embedded camera patents as well as a logical UX shift for the "Home button, Bottom Center" paradigm they established.

-K

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Jimrod said:
Oh completely, I'm a product designer myself and even now, working on a range of Bluetooth speakers I'm stuck with the historical baggage of the company and "old fashioned" speaker designs and expectations fitting with new tech and functionality. You have to keep an identity.

<SNIP>

In my opinion, for what it's worth! :D
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A beautiful, thoughtful, well-written reply from someone who clearly has insight into the space.

Thanks for adding to the discussion! My reply to these points is to your other post and addresses some of your points :)

-K
 
fisha said:
( I also that so many leaks on the iPhone 6 are a distraction away from other announcements ... almost like Apple aren't too worried as its keeping other things more secretive. )
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A very astute observation, indeed :)

-K
 
RnSK said:
Says the newbie...



My 'knowledge' of Apple goes back to the 80s...how about yours?



See: every iOS device leak since after the original iPhone.
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Used Apple in 1978 (of 79, not exactly sure the year), do I get a door prize ;-).

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Jimrod said:
I totally get that, the issues with thin bezels and usability, but I also think it's possibly to largely get around those issues with software as multi-touch gesturing could be used intelligently to null the inputs from the thumb pad part of the palm when the phone is held.
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I've used thinner bezel phones and they aren't doing it right, nobody is doing it right.. But, they'll bitch about Apple anyway, oh well. Apple changes things when its worth it to change it, not before. They're almost never the first, but often they are the best.
 
RnSK said:
Very true. I think the weight difference and the actual "thinness" (Gotta love Apple for that phraseology, heheh) was what really won people over ...
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It's a better phone no doubt about it. The thinness also reduces options where to put things. The home button doubles as a finger print scanner and so on. I believe Jony Ive would love to design a phone with a centered and flushed camera. But then the speaker and front-facing camera wouldn't be centered and the phone would need to be thicker and heavier overall or a thinner camera would make worse pictures. All these little design flaws are for a good engineering reason. The iPhone 5 has better reception because of the glass inlays. And what happened with the True Tone flash shows, Apple will use any chance of miniaturization to come back to its ideal design. The rubber bands are only their newest compromise to make it work. The iPhone 4 was probably the most uncompromising design. It only had a few small slits to make the antennas work. But what we got from that was Antennagate.

apple-jobs-iphone-4-antennagate.jpg

It better is unique to the iPhone 4.​
 
Keirasplace said:
Used Apple in 1978 (of 79, not exactly sure the year), do I get a door prize ;-).

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You do...back in those days, I believe I was using a PET. Ahhh memories :D

The first Apple I ever used was a ][ but I don't count that, because I wasn't doing it for actual money :)

-K
 
Jimrod said:
I'm sure the "real" iPhone 6 will look completely different to this... :rolleyes:

I think the problem that seems apparent in this thread is that many think it's real and many are finding reasons it's fake but the point seems to be getting missed - real or fake, this phone is at least 95% of what Apple will be showing us in a couple of days.
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No I disagree this is totally different, once you are used to the real deal this looks as fake as hell. The real deal is the feld and volk model spliced together. It clearly has thinner bezels and is made of much higher quality materials all round.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRzhd_fOY-s

Again this is fake as you can get and looks nothing like the real deal. I've already posted about 20 different reasons this is fake. I actually can't believe everyone is falling for this one!
 
The iPhone has very little to do with what Apple has been doing in secret for the last few years. The iPhone is the misdirection. Look over here, while we build some top secret new stuff. Apple doesn't even care if you see the leaks.

iolinux333 said:
This can't be real. Two years to just exactly scale up an iPod Touch 5 and stick a GSM radio in it? Huge bezels and all. C'mon, really?!? Holy Hell if this is real Apple is in serious trouble.
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Gudi said:
The iPhone 4 was probably the most uncompromising design. It only had a few small slits to make the antennas work. But what we got from that was Antennagate.

Image
It better is unique to the iPhone 4.​
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Amen.

I also believe that data, in the case of the 4-series, so many broken phones, + Antennagate, informed the design of the 5-series. I know a guy that used to work up in Elk Grove at the repair facility there. They got a lot of work in those days.

It's always about the trade offs. The metal has proven itself as far as durability goes, but at the end of the day the radio waves have to get thru. The iPads have the top plastic section, the iPods the oval on the back.

This one has what it has. Additionally, metal is 'premium' so...on we ride. We have metal, we need someplace for the sigs to pass thru.

Apple learns :)

-K
 
It's still better than the panels on the 5s. Those lines are antennas so when you consider that you need them on an aluminum backed phone and that with billions of dollars of R&D there isn't much of an alternative I'd rather have them :)

Or we could have a plastic backed phone.

I tend to sex those lines up a bit and call then iPhone "thong"

dangerly said:
Yep, those "separation" lines on the back ae really ugly.
Plus the rounded corners makes it look too much like a Samsung or an HTC.
Let's wait till tuesday to see the real thing.
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alexgowers said:
No I disagree this is totally different, once you are used to the real deal this looks as fake as hell. The real deal is the feld and volk model spliced together. It clearly has thinner bezels and is made of much higher quality materials all round.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRzhd_fOY-s

Again this is fake as you can get and looks nothing like the real deal. I've already posted about 20 different reasons this is fake. I actually can't believe everyone is falling for this one!
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Dude. The only difference is that one is black. Since it isn't running anything that goes to the left and right edges you can't *see* those bezels.

Dissonance.

-K
 
Just a thought on the thick antenna breaks - while they may be necessary to go around the new curved sides is there any chance they'd be thick enough to actually contain the antenna's? Be moulded around them? It would certainly give the best potential signal reception as opposed to being contained within the case.

Just a shot in the dark, antennas aren't my area of expertise!
 
fisha said:
There is an element of that, however, you can still reduce the bezels and re-design something which still has the style elements that is associated with an iPhone as you say.
Click to expand...
Its not (only) about branding. Think about all the stuff that is hidden behind those bezels.

The camera would be even more protruding, if it had to share space with a screen.

11442755993_42a6186f00_z.jpg

This is what we don't have, because we have bezels.​

Find new places for camera, speaker, home button, fingerprint scanner, lightning port etc. and the bezels will disappear.
 
Hmmmm...

Jimrod said:
Just a thought on the thick antenna breaks - while they may be necessary to go around the new curved sides is there any chance they'd be thick enough to actually contain the antenna's? Be moulded around them? It would certainly give the best potential signal reception as opposed to being contained within the case.

Just a shot in the dark, antennas aren't my area of expertise!
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I would not be surprised if this ended up being the "see that's why" reason. Sig's gotta get out somehow...flush-mounted to the back like that, greatly reduced chance of grip interference...seems viable.

We'll see...we'll see.

-K
 
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