10 bold iPhone designs we'd love to see Apple unveil
Love it or don't, the original iPhone was the device that launched a thousand touchscreen hopefuls. Now, over four years later, Cupertino's champion is still inspiring designers to rethink the way we interact with devices, as the iPhone helped the masses get all touchy feely with their phone displays, and the very idea of the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 has the world waiting on pins and needles for Apple's unveiling.
Below you'll find a gallery of 10 of designs from iPhones old and new — some that fine tune Apple's offering, while others take it in a new direction altogether.
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1. Glossy iPhone by Roman Vladimir Sima Let's start out simple: designer Roman Sima thinks the iPhone would look better with a touch of gloss. He also did up the iPad similarly, as you can see here. [Source]
3. iPhone Nano by Tracy Hall Slender with no physical buttons to speak of, this iPhone Nano concept has "anything else you might imagine." The iPod Touch is already nudging in on the iPhone's turf with its almost identical looks — who says the iPhone can't cannibalize back? [Source]
4. iPhone Pro by ADR Studio The iPhone Pro may not look like much of a departure save for some subtle accents here and there, but it's got a few things we're looking for, actually: a MagSafe charger for one (you can see it there on the back, bottom) as well as a roomier screen. [Source]
5. "Mood" iPhone by Kazi Shahriar Ahmed Bangladesh's Kazi Ahmed's concept isn't about a phone that knows how you feel. Instead, he's trying to infuse some feeling into the Home button. An incoming call will light the Home button green, for instance, and red could mean your battery is low or there's an urgent reminder waiting for you. [Source]
2. "Heir Apparent" by Robert Davis From the designer: "Crystal clear, thin, lightweight iPhone with the following features: fully functional Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, 3G compatibility, 64GB HD, 5 megapixel camera, and customizable UI (just to name a few).â [Source]
6. iPhone "Full Screen" by Alternative Industries See what's missing? Alternative Industries has taken the Home button off the front and moved it to the top, meaning your iPhone's face is all screen and nothing else. The group also wants it to be only 4 millimeters thick, making it bread slicing' width. [Source]
7. Titanium iPhone by Jim Young The Titanium iPhone is already appealing because of its tough design, but there's another feature in there that'd we'd absolutely love: an easily removable battery. Will we ever see an iPhone with one? Probably not, but we can dream. [Source]
9. Dashboard iPhone by Antonello Falcone Falcone spent quite a bit of time imagining what a different interface for the next iPhone could look like if it focused on Apple's widget-thick computing ecosystem. The real draw here, though, is right up front: the edges of the screen "blur" into the rest of the body, and it's striking enough all on its own. [Source]
10. Next Generation iPhone by Samuel Lee Kwon We leave you on a near-future note: why even have an iPhone with a touchscreen at all? Those are so 2007. Designer Sam Kwon's got the right idea: wear the unit as a bracelet, and simply project the interface out onto the user's hand. Does it sound crazy? Sure, but so did a smudge-happy, button-less, shatter-prone phone made by a computer company. [Source]
8. iPhone Elite by Mat Brady Brady's iPhone Elite takes a buffet-style approach to design and just puts everything you could ever want in one place. The specs you see in the image above were more impressive in 2008 when it was released, but the sentiment is still there: pack in the luxury, such as huge amounts of storage or a high quality camera for folks who don't mind paying a little extra for more. [Source]
