9 ms·

iPhone 6: An edgy concept

250 points by jason_shah 13y ago

MrFoof 13y ago
Would the aluminum + carbon fiber be a weave of aluminum mixed in with the carbon weave (similar to Pagani's carbotanium for the Huayra's body panels), or an aluminum galvanization process on the surface of the carbon fiber (similar to the galvanized carbon fiber in the Porsche 918 Spyder)?
- durkie 13y ago
  I did my master's thesis on aluminum/carbon fiber composites and typically they mean infiltrating liquid aluminum through weaves of carbon fiber. But these materials are hard as hell to make. Carbon and aluminum do not get along for a variety of reasons, and aluminum/carbon composites remain a pie-in-the-sky concept. One of the ways they make Al/C composites now is through a process called squeeze casting, whereby they just force molten aluminum (>660C) to infiltrate a fiber preform at super high pressures. And even then IIRC their properties usually fall well short of theoretical. These are not things nature wants us to put together (at least not yet).
  - derefr 13y ago
    How much additional effort is that on top of the current process of making gorilla glass, though? I believe it already requires some mighty temperatures+pressures.
    - durkie 13y ago
      High temperatures are true of glass work in general. I'm not 100% about the gorilla glass process, but I did not think it high pressure one. And high pressure is not a deal breaker -- it's just the best way to make some things right now. But even after you've forced carbon and aluminum together, you have a variety of other issues then to deal with: large potential for galvanic corrosion and huge difference in coefficient of thermal expansion are two of the primary ones. The fact that they have horrible wetting behavior is another one, and is the reason they have to do squeeze casting in the first place, but likely also negatively affects the quality of the interface formed between the carbon and the aluminum (thus leading to poor properties even after you've spent all the effort of making it)
  - vl 13y ago
    Well, then in this iPhone they should use carbon fiber titanium instead!
    - durkie 13y ago
      they would likely run in to similar problems. metal matrix composites in general are hard to make and underperform. i just know the most about al/c composites. also, aluminum and titanium are already really strong and light. the author wanted to include carbon fiber because "it's perfectly rigid and doesn't bend" and that "scratches are a thing of the past". i appreciate that he wants a bit of far-out flourish for his new design, but both of those statements are way off the mark technically, and would be poor and wrong reasons to pursue difficult to make metal-matrix composites. and let's not even get started on the graphene...
LaSombra 13y ago
I fail to comprehend this kind of fetish
OrsenPike 13y ago
Not gonna lie, I would buy that in a heartbeat.
cldr 13y ago
> The only way to create a true edge-to-edge display is to remove the edge all together. And moisture is the essence of wetness.
- aegiso 13y ago
  But wetness is the essence of beauty. Quotes aside, I've imagined this kind of edgeless design to be where things are headed, and it certainly looks beautiful.
  - jotm 13y ago
    It's more likely that the next iPhone or Galaxy S will have the home button removed (finally), the speaker squeezed as far to the top edge as possible and the screen will fit all that new empty space, with 1-2mm borders. That's doable in the next 1-2 years, this design isn't.
- jodrellblank 13y ago
  If you remove the edge, you get a cylindrical display.
stfsbrb 13y ago
The icons in those home screen mockups look a heck of a lot better than the real ones: http://apple.com/ios/ios7 http://apple.com/ios/ios7
- tammer 13y ago
  I think it's what will most likely happen over time - elements and affordances from the old design will bleed into the stark minimalism of the new one (along with new ideas). The iOS 7 design is minimal in order to be a blank slate.
- gurkendoktor 13y ago
  The home screen icons were the highlight for me. The hardware mockup is full of hyperbole, but the icon set seems very humble in contrast. It is much closer to Apple's established branding than the real (beta) iOS 7. This is the kind of icon set that could be introduced without making all existing icons seem out of place. And it looks gorgeous on a black iPhone (mockup) because it's not as light.
joeblau 13y ago
The design looks amazing, even though most people will probably have the device covered up with a phone cover. Also retina 2 sounds like i would need 3 versions of every image in my app which is getting to be a bit much.
- derefr 13y ago
  > Also retina 2 sounds like i would need 3 versions of every image in my app which is getting to be a bit much. I don't see why; for the edges, I think it'd look fine to just stretch the border-edge pixel out to infinity. All taps/gestures on the "sides" could be reported as occurring at the edge pixels. You'd need to modify your view-controller logic (to do something with all these edge-taps), but not your view.
- bebna 13y ago
  > 3 versions of every image In Android you have to use 4 different density versions of your images to support the majority. And in BB10 you think about to differnt formats which have different artistic rules to them (you can't use the rule of thirds in a square, it doesn't work well). So you should better expect screen size/density/aspect ratio differences in future or you will probably regret it.
- cclogg 13y ago
  On a related note, I feel like this issue (non-retina, retina, iphone 5 version, ipad version, older iOS support, etc) and the over-saturated app store have really stifled the indie development world. It takes a lot more effort to make a nicely packaged app today than in 2008-2009, and then you launch on the store and you're just one in 800,000 or w/e. To me, it's kind of like how the first people on Youtube now have millions of views, but good luck starting a new YT account today...
  - alexfringes 13y ago
    Marco Arment seems to think that this fall will be as close as we can get back to 08/09 for a while: http://www.marco.org/2013/06/11/fertile-ground http://www.marco.org/2013/06/11/fertile-ground
deleted 13y ago
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lumens 13y ago
Everything about this design, from the edge to edge glass, to the Lightening + Magsafe connector is super appealing, but it's too much of a jump for Apple. Their design style is much slower and more iterative than this. Arguably the biggest hardware leap so far was the 3gs -> 4, and that was limited to an aesthetic re-envisioning, a camera improvement, screen resolution upgrade, and processor bump. This design showcases improvements that Apple would likely spread out over 3 generations: everything listed for their biggest leap above, plus new input mechanisms, new connector, significantly less heft, and waterproofing (!!). Don't get me wrong -- I'd buy this in an instant, but it looks more like iPhone 8, than 6.
- Finbarr 13y ago
  I think a bigger design leap is from the existing Mac Pro range to the new Mac Pro. From this: http://bit.ly/13VYioH http://bit.ly/13VYioH [1] to this: http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/ http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/ [1] Apple store is currently down, this is a link to an image.
mynameisvlad 13y ago
That Magsafe Lightning concept would never work. Not only is there not enough space to fit powerful enough magnets, not only is the Lightning connector 8-pin, but one of the only reasons MagSafe even works is that laptops are strong enough to still be in the same place if tugged slightly. Your phone will now not only be tugged along with the cord, but will then disconnect more easily and fly across the room.
- derefr 13y ago
  It could work... if they gave the connector a really big magnetic "ring" that held to the entirety of the bottom of the frame, not just the bit in the center. Maybe if they figured out a way to make the speakers also magnets... ;)
  - mynameisvlad 13y ago
    But the other issues will still plague it. It either won't disconnect, or will disconnect to easily.
- aroman 13y ago
  I disagree. Just build a strong magnet in there (as was suggested, maybe via the speaker). The advantage of the connector would not be the disconnect-on-trip feature, but rather convenience for plugging and unplugging. Namely, it's a lot easier to just have the cord snap it place magnetically than to futz around with the small metal tip[0]. You're assuming it'd either be too weak or too strong. They would calibrate it until it was "just right", as they do (or try to do) with pretty much all of their ergonomics decisions. [0] Anecdotally, I own both a MagSafe 2 device and an iPhone 5.
  - minor_nitwit 13y ago
    Or just use wireless charging and sync.
  - jblock 13y ago
    Regardless, I still don't want a big magnet in my pocket
mtgx 13y ago
1) Not very original 2) Not going to happen
brentm 13y ago
I think that design looks amazing. I like the concept of MagSafe connector but the world would shit a brick if they changed it again that quickly.
jrockway 13y ago
I love the idea of wrapping the display around the side of the phone and having touch sensors to detect when you're holding your phone. I have this problem where I'm holding the phone with one hand and trying to press something with my thumb. It doesn't register as a touch because part of my hand is contacting the front of the screen, causing my action to be interpreted as some sort of two-finger gesture. With accurate information about where my hand is, this would be easy to fix. One question: why not a 1920x1080 screen? The Galaxy S4 already has that resolution.
- wahnfrieden 13y ago
  iOS 7 solves this to some degree by letting you swipe from the edge in place of tapping the navigation buttons in the titlebar.
- minor_nitwit 13y ago
  I believe the ipad mini already has touch rejection of this sort.
- jotm 13y ago
  Seriously, why do you need 1920x1080? 1280x720 on a 5 inch display is great, even 960x540 on a 4.7 inch display (Optimus L9) still looks great, I just don't see the point unless you want to deplete your battery as fast as possible...
  - slacka 13y ago
    Yes, Enough with the PPI race. On a 4" or 5" display give me 720p and more battery life over 1080p. If the manufacturer does not opt for the top of the line GPU, games suffer too, since by doubling the resolution, you need to quadruple the pixels rendered. Apple made this mistake with the iPad 3 and iPhone 4, both which performed worse than their predecessors. This PPI race reminds me of the megapixel race in cameras. Where dumb consumers think a "higher spec" is better when it actually gives them a fuzzier screen (pentile OLED over non-pentile, not in LCD), worse battery life, and worse performance in games.
gaze 13y ago
Why do designers pull numbers out of their ass to make a concept sound more appealing? "Dual quad core processor!" yeah, well my concept has dual octocore processors and my concept will be liquid cooled! I mean phase change cooled!
- zanny 13y ago
  Plasma ultra cooling! Probably still need to tack "gamer" on so you can double the price and use cheaper materials, as long as it is black and red.
AndrewDucker 13y ago
I'm reminded of the Samsung prototype on the left here: http://www.mobilephones.com/news/samsung-reveal-flexible-phone-prototype/ http://www.mobilephones.com/news/samsung-reveal-flexible-pho... where the screen comes round the edge of the surface. Pretty, and a lot more likely to be in production this decade.
conradfr 13y ago
And then you put a cover / bumper ...
rayiner 13y ago
I don't understand the point of these mockups unless they have an actual prototype. It's easy to hand-wave about how great a product will be that can't be built. The borderless glass is probably a non-starter because of chipping. And why would you make an aluminum/carbon fiber composite? Aluminum and carbon fiber both serve the same purpose in a composite structure. You'd use something like a metal-matrix aluminum composite instead, set in resin.
- chrisrhoden 13y ago
  It's really difficult for me to look at something like this as someone with even the barest of comprehensions as to how complicated some of this would be to even do, much less well enough that it would make sense to put in a consumer product this year. Oh, you're going to make the screen out of graphene? My mockups are exactly the same as yours, but instead of aluminum my case is made of diamond. I've solved the chipping problem! To be clear, I think that these are really attractive visual mockups with some interesting concepts, but I have seen literally every one of them before elsewhere.
  - DigitalJack 13y ago
    The point of imagination is that it is not limited by constraints. How can you envision the future if you are limited by the constraints of today? Steve Jobs is quoted in the 80's as saying that they aspire to make a computer that is essentially today's macbook or ipad.[1] It most certainly was impossible at the time. I sure like mine though. You know what you get when you limit yourself to the constraints of right now? The IBM PC Jr. [1] "Apple's strategy is really simple. What we want to do is we want to put an incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you and learn how to use in 20 minutes. That's what we want to do and we want to do it this decade." http://lifelibertytech.com/2012/10/02/the-lost-steve-jobs-speech-from-1983-foreshadowing-wireless-networking-the-ipad-and-the-app-store/ http://lifelibertytech.com/2012/10/02/the-lost-steve-jobs-sp...
    - rayiner 13y ago
      > The point of imagination is that it is not limited by constraints. But there's no real imagination here either. It's just a thinner, lighter iPhone, made thinner and lighter using materials that don't exist. Genius! As an aside, this is how Jony Ive works: http://www.objectifiedfilm.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/ive2.jpg http://www.objectifiedfilm.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/01....
sadrobot 13y ago
How long until apple's lawyers shut this down for using their trademarks all over the place without permission?
b1daly 13y ago
Here's an idea. Make a phone with a case that is strong enough to withstand the drops that inevitably happen! Putting so much effort into cool looking things that have to be covered by dorky cases is an illustration of the irrational at the heart of tech fetishes.
- jotm 13y ago
  Yes! That's exactly why I would love a slightly more rugged Galaxy S4 Active - what's the point of an edge-to-edge display if you're going to crack it on the first drop (which happens even if you're super careful and have ninja reflexes)...
- adrusi 13y ago
  I've dropped my iPhone 4 from a meter high onto surfaces such as wood, tile and asphalt more times than I'm willing to admit, and I've experienced no cracks. I don't know if I'm just astoundingly lucky, or if my particular device is just very well built, but I am satisfied with the state of phone durability at least from my limited experience.
jamesmccann 13y ago
96GB drive? Seems fishy to me.
- Bud 13y ago
  It seems fishy to you to do a 50% storage improvement, when we just saw a 100% storage improvement to 128GB on the iPad? Not fishy at all. Quite plausible. If anything, it's reasonably likely that there will be MORE of an improvement than the concept predicts, in this case.
  - mynameisvlad 13y ago
    That's a particularly odd configuration of flash chips, though. That's why you don't see 96GB SSDs very often. Generally, they're found in powers of two.
    - lmm 13y ago
      Physical 128GB with 96GB user-accessible sounds plausible enough.
    - VLM 13y ago
      Its a marketing/pricing game. Manufacture all of them with 128G of storage. Every single one of them. Then the consumer gets to pay a varying amount to be permitted to use what they paid for. This is a VERY old idea in the computing world.
- swalsh 13y ago
  Honestly, that's the most realistic aspect of the whole concept.
geuis 13y ago
Folks, stop bitching and complaining about this or that idea being good/bad/impractical etc, etc. It's a designer's demo portfolio work. http://www.johnnyplaid.com http://www.johnnyplaid.com Designers do this stuff because they have ideas about how devices and interfaces can change and they explore those ideas. It doesn't seem to me that Johnny is making claims about inside information. He's using his visual talents to create mockups of what might be possible in the future. The medium is different, but the process isn't any different than sci-fi writers setting stories in the future or me making UI wireframes for an application. It's just ways of exploring what could be done. The last point is to realize that this is most likely just personal portfolio work. Some of us have github profiles and others have PSD's. Just think about the exposure Johnny is getting out of this and how it might get him more work in the future. That's the best reason for him to make this.
- sbierwagen 13y ago
  If this is an advertisement, then all it advertises is that he is incompetent at industrial design.
  - pallandt 13y ago
    I can understand the need to re-design something in attempts to get exposure, I think someone attempted a Facebook redesign relatively recently on Behance and they got a ton of exposure from that, but this iPhone concept is completely impractical, starting with that screen curving over the borders (fragile, slippery, higher costs etc). I pretty much agree, if he was so committed to the idea of a 'better' iPhone, a little more research into industrial design wouldn't have hurt.
  - arrrg 13y ago
    Yeah, well he is not an industrial designer, doesn’t advertise himself as one and doesn’t sell his industrial design skills. Which he doesn’t have. Doesn’t even claim to have. Not even a little bit. He is a fucking graphic designer and that’s exactly how you should judge this.
    - 13y ago
jodrellblank 13y ago
With that design of touch sensors on the edge, it would open it up to support being used as a chording keyboard in the style of the classic DataEgg - http://xaphoon.com/dataegg/DataEggNewShape.jpg http://xaphoon.com/dataegg/DataEggNewShape.jpg
tomphoolery 13y ago
This is awesome! Very well made, I hope someone from Apple HR is watching...
jasonwatkinspdx 13y ago
I don't understand why so many designers attempt to push the limits of material science while clearly being almost entirely ignorant of it. For example, carbon fiber composites do bend. You can make springs out of them. Also, if you could figure out how to manufacture graphene at a scale large enough to use them on iphone screens you'd probably win the Nobel. You can't push the boundary of what's possible without already understanding the physics and engineering of the existing boundary. Otherwise you're just another kid with a pretend jetpack made out of 2 liter soda bottles. It's fun, and perhaps praiseworthy for a kid... but as an adult you look a bit silly claiming the design is something real.
- waylonk 13y ago
  I don't understand why so many Science Fiction authors attempt push the limits of material science while clearly being almost entirely ignorant of it. For example, carbon fiber composites do bend. You can make springs out of them. Also, if you could figure out how to manufacture anti-gravity thrusters at a scale large enough to use them on a space ship you'd probably win the Nobel.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 13y ago
    Product Design != Science Fiction
    - m_ram 13y ago
      This is Product Design Fiction.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
dlsym 13y ago
Won't happen.
ricardobeat 13y ago
The icons! Those icons look great, for the most part. Still 'flat' while keeping the iOS personality.
kyro 13y ago
I would highly recommend the majority of you here to stay away from fashion shows and car conventions if this is your reaction to this concept.
- shinratdr 13y ago
  I think it's safe to assume that's pretty much the case for the majority of us to begin with.
  - kyro 13y ago
    Which is really a shame. They're typically great fun, and potentially inspirational.
scep12 13y ago
Some nice ideas in there, but I have a few objections: On a practical level, this would be more better described as a prototype for the iPhone 8 + iOS X ... or something a bit further out than next year. Is that too nit-picky? Probably. As far as the aesthetics go - it looks almost exactly like the HTC One, albeit without a bezel. For a product designer with imaginative ideas about nearly everything else, I would have hoped for a more interesting enclosure design.
kenkam 13y ago
It is obvious that this is not an attempt at trying to design a plausible iPhone. It is an attempt to show case his design chops. Unfortunately, I can't give him full marks on his design, I was put off by his "Accidental Gesture Recognition" paragraph. It is a short paragraph of 7 lines, 3 of which are hyphenated. Pedantry aside, I think the mockups look great.
arms 13y ago
Very impressive - I'd love to have something that looked that damn cool. The wrap around screen kept making me think of infinity pools.
mkr-hn 13y ago
The iPhone, as boring as it is, at least has a distinct look. This is a rectangle with beveled corners.
coin 13y ago
Yet his site doesn't allow pinchzoom on mobile devices
bittired 13y ago
A neat design here, but I'd rather see designs that are more creative. What about an iShirt whose color could change via bluetooth from your phone, depending on how many unread emails you have? And the quote about graphene was distracting to me because I know for certain that Apple would not have a layer of graphene that would be as thick as Saran Wrap. That's crazy talk- too expensive. I know he wasn't saying it would be that thick, but that was the first thing that came to mind: "no way they would do that".
shinratdr 13y ago
Someone said on Twitter the other day, I wonder what UI designers could come up with if they weren't hamstrung by the fact that it needs to be built by a developer? I can't help but think of exactly that whenever I see one of these hardware mockups. This is what designers can do when they aren't hamstrung by the need to actually have it built by hardware engineers. An interesting intellectual exercise and a beautiful design, but that only applies if you think it could be real, or else it's the hardware equivalent of a Minority Report interface. I just don't see this in my hand within the next 20 years. That makes it easy to be pessimistic. In reference to the top comment, that's why good Sci Fi tends to focus on how the technology affects the future society and interpersonal relationships, not simply marvelling at the technology itself. Calling this the "iPhone 6" mockup and not simply a future phone or even iPhone puts a certain expectation on it, as does the mention of specs that would only be impressive for a year or two. You can't have it both ways. Either it's an entirely theoretical mockup that can't be criticized and it's simply design work or I'm supposed to imagine it as the iPhone that's on the market two years from now with the specs listed on that page.
- woah 13y ago
  I am an interface designer, and the constraints imposed by those mean ol' developers are because they are forced to think through logical flows to implement them. The perfect ui would be a device that you wear in a small ring that reads your mind to find out exactly what you want, and using superhuman ai, strategizes the perfect way to get it for you. There. I did it.
  - shinratdr 13y ago
    For the record that's kind of my point. You need to have a balance and "it's just a portfolio demo" rings hollow to me.
TallboyOne 13y ago
Is this a joke? Lol, how are you supposed to use this with one hand. The design (from a presentation perspective) is beautiful, the idea from a practicality standpoint is 100% useless. I couldn't tell if this was serious until I was like 75% of the way through.
synor 13y ago
This is not even a good portfolio piece. The typography is really bad.
jl6 13y ago
Dishonest linkbait headline.
scoyote 13y ago
Ок. It's cool! Do same OS cool concept and I am ready to buy.
drivebyacct2 13y ago
Hilarious. This is a joke right? Like, 180/183 people ironically upvoted this right?
Tloewald 13y ago
Here's where the guy loses me: the sample movie on the phone is Lone Ranger.
alan_cx 13y ago
It does look great, but Im not sure my hands and fingers would fare well if the edges got chipped. A chipped edge would not be enough to pay lots to get it fixed, where as a shattered screen is. As a result, I see minor injury being a bit of a problem.
ksec 13y ago
I think the Calculation for Screen Size were off. ( Unless I am Wrong ) Assuming no changes in Resolution Scale to iPhone 5, a Display that is 5.86cm Width would be 4.7" Diagonal. Which incidentally fits in with the latest rumours on 4.7" display. Um....
cseelus 13y ago
Wow, some of the reactions here are really petty-minded to me. This guy just made mockups of a future iteration he imagined, of a product he probably uses and likes. Something designers have published to the interwebs for years. It can be fun and a nice way to improve on your skills. It don't get what justifies the hate some people here show up with. If you don't like it, just skip it and enjoy something else.
joesb 13y ago
I like pure design concept, without regarding to technical limitation. I like pure technology design concept without regarding to economical consideration. This design is just plain form design plus some wanna-be technical terms.
JohnDotAwesome 13y ago
This would be the coolest god damn phone. If Apple made the smaller form factor again with a slightly bigger screen, I'd be on that. I hate the wonky rectangle of the 5. Thanks, Johnny. This stuff is fun to think about.

250 points by jason_shah 13y ago

Would the aluminum + carbon fiber be a weave of aluminum mixed in with the carbon weave (similar to Pagani's carbotanium for the Huayra's body panels), or an aluminum galvanization process on the surface of the carbon fiber (similar to the galvanized carbon fiber in the Porsche 918 Spyder)?

durkie 13y ago
I did my master's thesis on aluminum/carbon fiber composites and typically they mean infiltrating liquid aluminum through weaves of carbon fiber. But these materials are hard as hell to make. Carbon and aluminum do not get along for a variety of reasons, and aluminum/carbon composites remain a pie-in-the-sky concept. One of the ways they make Al/C composites now is through a process called squeeze casting, whereby they just force molten aluminum (>660C) to infiltrate a fiber preform at super high pressures. And even then IIRC their properties usually fall well short of theoretical. These are not things nature wants us to put together (at least not yet).
- derefr 13y ago
  How much additional effort is that on top of the current process of making gorilla glass, though? I believe it already requires some mighty temperatures+pressures.
  - durkie 13y ago
    High temperatures are true of glass work in general. I'm not 100% about the gorilla glass process, but I did not think it high pressure one. And high pressure is not a deal breaker -- it's just the best way to make some things right now. But even after you've forced carbon and aluminum together, you have a variety of other issues then to deal with: large potential for galvanic corrosion and huge difference in coefficient of thermal expansion are two of the primary ones. The fact that they have horrible wetting behavior is another one, and is the reason they have to do squeeze casting in the first place, but likely also negatively affects the quality of the interface formed between the carbon and the aluminum (thus leading to poor properties even after you've spent all the effort of making it)
- vl 13y ago
  Well, then in this iPhone they should use carbon fiber titanium instead!
  - durkie 13y ago
    they would likely run in to similar problems. metal matrix composites in general are hard to make and underperform. i just know the most about al/c composites. also, aluminum and titanium are already really strong and light. the author wanted to include carbon fiber because "it's perfectly rigid and doesn't bend" and that "scratches are a thing of the past". i appreciate that he wants a bit of far-out flourish for his new design, but both of those statements are way off the mark technically, and would be poor and wrong reasons to pursue difficult to make metal-matrix composites. and let's not even get started on the graphene...

LaSombra 13y ago

I fail to comprehend this kind of fetish

OrsenPike 13y ago

Not gonna lie, I would buy that in a heartbeat.

cldr 13y ago

> The only way to create a true edge-to-edge display is to remove the edge all together. And moisture is the essence of wetness.

aegiso 13y ago
But wetness is the essence of beauty. Quotes aside, I've imagined this kind of edgeless design to be where things are headed, and it certainly looks beautiful.
- jotm 13y ago
  It's more likely that the next iPhone or Galaxy S will have the home button removed (finally), the speaker squeezed as far to the top edge as possible and the screen will fit all that new empty space, with 1-2mm borders. That's doable in the next 1-2 years, this design isn't.
jodrellblank 13y ago
If you remove the edge, you get a cylindrical display.

stfsbrb 13y ago

The icons in those home screen mockups look a heck of a lot better than the real ones: http://apple.com/ios/ios7 http://apple.com/ios/ios7

tammer 13y ago
I think it's what will most likely happen over time - elements and affordances from the old design will bleed into the stark minimalism of the new one (along with new ideas). The iOS 7 design is minimal in order to be a blank slate.
gurkendoktor 13y ago
The home screen icons were the highlight for me. The hardware mockup is full of hyperbole, but the icon set seems very humble in contrast. It is much closer to Apple's established branding than the real (beta) iOS 7. This is the kind of icon set that could be introduced without making all existing icons seem out of place. And it looks gorgeous on a black iPhone (mockup) because it's not as light.

joeblau 13y ago

The design looks amazing, even though most people will probably have the device covered up with a phone cover. Also retina 2 sounds like i would need 3 versions of every image in my app which is getting to be a bit much.

derefr 13y ago
> Also retina 2 sounds like i would need 3 versions of every image in my app which is getting to be a bit much. I don't see why; for the edges, I think it'd look fine to just stretch the border-edge pixel out to infinity. All taps/gestures on the "sides" could be reported as occurring at the edge pixels. You'd need to modify your view-controller logic (to do something with all these edge-taps), but not your view.
bebna 13y ago
> 3 versions of every image In Android you have to use 4 different density versions of your images to support the majority. And in BB10 you think about to differnt formats which have different artistic rules to them (you can't use the rule of thirds in a square, it doesn't work well). So you should better expect screen size/density/aspect ratio differences in future or you will probably regret it.
cclogg 13y ago
On a related note, I feel like this issue (non-retina, retina, iphone 5 version, ipad version, older iOS support, etc) and the over-saturated app store have really stifled the indie development world. It takes a lot more effort to make a nicely packaged app today than in 2008-2009, and then you launch on the store and you're just one in 800,000 or w/e. To me, it's kind of like how the first people on Youtube now have millions of views, but good luck starting a new YT account today...
- alexfringes 13y ago
  Marco Arment seems to think that this fall will be as close as we can get back to 08/09 for a while: http://www.marco.org/2013/06/11/fertile-ground http://www.marco.org/2013/06/11/fertile-ground

deleted 13y ago

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lumens 13y ago

Everything about this design, from the edge to edge glass, to the Lightening + Magsafe connector is super appealing, but it's too much of a jump for Apple. Their design style is much slower and more iterative than this. Arguably the biggest hardware leap so far was the 3gs -> 4, and that was limited to an aesthetic re-envisioning, a camera improvement, screen resolution upgrade, and processor bump. This design showcases improvements that Apple would likely spread out over 3 generations: everything listed for their biggest leap above, plus new input mechanisms, new connector, significantly less heft, and waterproofing (!!). Don't get me wrong -- I'd buy this in an instant, but it looks more like iPhone 8, than 6.

Finbarr 13y ago
I think a bigger design leap is from the existing Mac Pro range to the new Mac Pro. From this: http://bit.ly/13VYioH http://bit.ly/13VYioH [1] to this: http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/ http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/ [1] Apple store is currently down, this is a link to an image.

mynameisvlad 13y ago

That Magsafe Lightning concept would never work. Not only is there not enough space to fit powerful enough magnets, not only is the Lightning connector 8-pin, but one of the only reasons MagSafe even works is that laptops are strong enough to still be in the same place if tugged slightly. Your phone will now not only be tugged along with the cord, but will then disconnect more easily and fly across the room.

derefr 13y ago
It could work... if they gave the connector a really big magnetic "ring" that held to the entirety of the bottom of the frame, not just the bit in the center. Maybe if they figured out a way to make the speakers also magnets... ;)
- mynameisvlad 13y ago
  But the other issues will still plague it. It either won't disconnect, or will disconnect to easily.
aroman 13y ago
I disagree. Just build a strong magnet in there (as was suggested, maybe via the speaker). The advantage of the connector would not be the disconnect-on-trip feature, but rather convenience for plugging and unplugging. Namely, it's a lot easier to just have the cord snap it place magnetically than to futz around with the small metal tip[0]. You're assuming it'd either be too weak or too strong. They would calibrate it until it was "just right", as they do (or try to do) with pretty much all of their ergonomics decisions. [0] Anecdotally, I own both a MagSafe 2 device and an iPhone 5.
- minor_nitwit 13y ago
  Or just use wireless charging and sync.
- jblock 13y ago
  Regardless, I still don't want a big magnet in my pocket

mtgx 13y ago

1) Not very original 2) Not going to happen

brentm 13y ago

I think that design looks amazing. I like the concept of MagSafe connector but the world would shit a brick if they changed it again that quickly.

jrockway 13y ago

I love the idea of wrapping the display around the side of the phone and having touch sensors to detect when you're holding your phone. I have this problem where I'm holding the phone with one hand and trying to press something with my thumb. It doesn't register as a touch because part of my hand is contacting the front of the screen, causing my action to be interpreted as some sort of two-finger gesture. With accurate information about where my hand is, this would be easy to fix. One question: why not a 1920x1080 screen? The Galaxy S4 already has that resolution.

wahnfrieden 13y ago
iOS 7 solves this to some degree by letting you swipe from the edge in place of tapping the navigation buttons in the titlebar.
minor_nitwit 13y ago
I believe the ipad mini already has touch rejection of this sort.
jotm 13y ago
Seriously, why do you need 1920x1080? 1280x720 on a 5 inch display is great, even 960x540 on a 4.7 inch display (Optimus L9) still looks great, I just don't see the point unless you want to deplete your battery as fast as possible...
- slacka 13y ago
  Yes, Enough with the PPI race. On a 4" or 5" display give me 720p and more battery life over 1080p. If the manufacturer does not opt for the top of the line GPU, games suffer too, since by doubling the resolution, you need to quadruple the pixels rendered. Apple made this mistake with the iPad 3 and iPhone 4, both which performed worse than their predecessors. This PPI race reminds me of the megapixel race in cameras. Where dumb consumers think a "higher spec" is better when it actually gives them a fuzzier screen (pentile OLED over non-pentile, not in LCD), worse battery life, and worse performance in games.

gaze 13y ago

Why do designers pull numbers out of their ass to make a concept sound more appealing? "Dual quad core processor!" yeah, well my concept has dual octocore processors and my concept will be liquid cooled! I mean phase change cooled!

zanny 13y ago
Plasma ultra cooling! Probably still need to tack "gamer" on so you can double the price and use cheaper materials, as long as it is black and red.

AndrewDucker 13y ago

I'm reminded of the Samsung prototype on the left here: http://www.mobilephones.com/news/samsung-reveal-flexible-phone-prototype/ http://www.mobilephones.com/news/samsung-reveal-flexible-pho... where the screen comes round the edge of the surface. Pretty, and a lot more likely to be in production this decade.

conradfr 13y ago

And then you put a cover / bumper ...

rayiner 13y ago

I don't understand the point of these mockups unless they have an actual prototype. It's easy to hand-wave about how great a product will be that can't be built. The borderless glass is probably a non-starter because of chipping. And why would you make an aluminum/carbon fiber composite? Aluminum and carbon fiber both serve the same purpose in a composite structure. You'd use something like a metal-matrix aluminum composite instead, set in resin.

chrisrhoden 13y ago
It's really difficult for me to look at something like this as someone with even the barest of comprehensions as to how complicated some of this would be to even do, much less well enough that it would make sense to put in a consumer product this year. Oh, you're going to make the screen out of graphene? My mockups are exactly the same as yours, but instead of aluminum my case is made of diamond. I've solved the chipping problem! To be clear, I think that these are really attractive visual mockups with some interesting concepts, but I have seen literally every one of them before elsewhere.
- DigitalJack 13y ago
  The point of imagination is that it is not limited by constraints. How can you envision the future if you are limited by the constraints of today? Steve Jobs is quoted in the 80's as saying that they aspire to make a computer that is essentially today's macbook or ipad.[1] It most certainly was impossible at the time. I sure like mine though. You know what you get when you limit yourself to the constraints of right now? The IBM PC Jr. [1] "Apple's strategy is really simple. What we want to do is we want to put an incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you and learn how to use in 20 minutes. That's what we want to do and we want to do it this decade." http://lifelibertytech.com/2012/10/02/the-lost-steve-jobs-speech-from-1983-foreshadowing-wireless-networking-the-ipad-and-the-app-store/ http://lifelibertytech.com/2012/10/02/the-lost-steve-jobs-sp...
  - rayiner 13y ago
    > The point of imagination is that it is not limited by constraints. But there's no real imagination here either. It's just a thinner, lighter iPhone, made thinner and lighter using materials that don't exist. Genius! As an aside, this is how Jony Ive works: http://www.objectifiedfilm.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/ive2.jpg http://www.objectifiedfilm.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/01....

sadrobot 13y ago

How long until apple's lawyers shut this down for using their trademarks all over the place without permission?

b1daly 13y ago

Here's an idea. Make a phone with a case that is strong enough to withstand the drops that inevitably happen! Putting so much effort into cool looking things that have to be covered by dorky cases is an illustration of the irrational at the heart of tech fetishes.

jotm 13y ago
Yes! That's exactly why I would love a slightly more rugged Galaxy S4 Active - what's the point of an edge-to-edge display if you're going to crack it on the first drop (which happens even if you're super careful and have ninja reflexes)...
adrusi 13y ago
I've dropped my iPhone 4 from a meter high onto surfaces such as wood, tile and asphalt more times than I'm willing to admit, and I've experienced no cracks. I don't know if I'm just astoundingly lucky, or if my particular device is just very well built, but I am satisfied with the state of phone durability at least from my limited experience.

jamesmccann 13y ago

96GB drive? Seems fishy to me.

Bud 13y ago
It seems fishy to you to do a 50% storage improvement, when we just saw a 100% storage improvement to 128GB on the iPad? Not fishy at all. Quite plausible. If anything, it's reasonably likely that there will be MORE of an improvement than the concept predicts, in this case.
- mynameisvlad 13y ago
  That's a particularly odd configuration of flash chips, though. That's why you don't see 96GB SSDs very often. Generally, they're found in powers of two.
  - lmm 13y ago
    Physical 128GB with 96GB user-accessible sounds plausible enough.
  - VLM 13y ago
    Its a marketing/pricing game. Manufacture all of them with 128G of storage. Every single one of them. Then the consumer gets to pay a varying amount to be permitted to use what they paid for. This is a VERY old idea in the computing world.
swalsh 13y ago
Honestly, that's the most realistic aspect of the whole concept.

geuis 13y ago

Folks, stop bitching and complaining about this or that idea being good/bad/impractical etc, etc. It's a designer's demo portfolio work. http://www.johnnyplaid.com http://www.johnnyplaid.com Designers do this stuff because they have ideas about how devices and interfaces can change and they explore those ideas. It doesn't seem to me that Johnny is making claims about inside information. He's using his visual talents to create mockups of what might be possible in the future. The medium is different, but the process isn't any different than sci-fi writers setting stories in the future or me making UI wireframes for an application. It's just ways of exploring what could be done. The last point is to realize that this is most likely just personal portfolio work. Some of us have github profiles and others have PSD's. Just think about the exposure Johnny is getting out of this and how it might get him more work in the future. That's the best reason for him to make this.

sbierwagen 13y ago
If this is an advertisement, then all it advertises is that he is incompetent at industrial design.
- pallandt 13y ago
  I can understand the need to re-design something in attempts to get exposure, I think someone attempted a Facebook redesign relatively recently on Behance and they got a ton of exposure from that, but this iPhone concept is completely impractical, starting with that screen curving over the borders (fragile, slippery, higher costs etc). I pretty much agree, if he was so committed to the idea of a 'better' iPhone, a little more research into industrial design wouldn't have hurt.
- arrrg 13y ago
  Yeah, well he is not an industrial designer, doesn’t advertise himself as one and doesn’t sell his industrial design skills. Which he doesn’t have. Doesn’t even claim to have. Not even a little bit. He is a fucking graphic designer and that’s exactly how you should judge this.
  - 13y ago

jodrellblank 13y ago

With that design of touch sensors on the edge, it would open it up to support being used as a chording keyboard in the style of the classic DataEgg - http://xaphoon.com/dataegg/DataEggNewShape.jpg http://xaphoon.com/dataegg/DataEggNewShape.jpg

tomphoolery 13y ago

This is awesome! Very well made, I hope someone from Apple HR is watching...

jasonwatkinspdx 13y ago

I don't understand why so many designers attempt to push the limits of material science while clearly being almost entirely ignorant of it. For example, carbon fiber composites do bend. You can make springs out of them. Also, if you could figure out how to manufacture graphene at a scale large enough to use them on iphone screens you'd probably win the Nobel. You can't push the boundary of what's possible without already understanding the physics and engineering of the existing boundary. Otherwise you're just another kid with a pretend jetpack made out of 2 liter soda bottles. It's fun, and perhaps praiseworthy for a kid... but as an adult you look a bit silly claiming the design is something real.

waylonk 13y ago
I don't understand why so many Science Fiction authors attempt push the limits of material science while clearly being almost entirely ignorant of it. For example, carbon fiber composites do bend. You can make springs out of them. Also, if you could figure out how to manufacture anti-gravity thrusters at a scale large enough to use them on a space ship you'd probably win the Nobel.
- jasonwatkinspdx 13y ago
  Product Design != Science Fiction
  - m_ram 13y ago
    This is Product Design Fiction.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

dlsym 13y ago

Won't happen.

ricardobeat 13y ago

The icons! Those icons look great, for the most part. Still 'flat' while keeping the iOS personality.

kyro 13y ago

I would highly recommend the majority of you here to stay away from fashion shows and car conventions if this is your reaction to this concept.

shinratdr 13y ago
I think it's safe to assume that's pretty much the case for the majority of us to begin with.
- kyro 13y ago
  Which is really a shame. They're typically great fun, and potentially inspirational.

scep12 13y ago

Some nice ideas in there, but I have a few objections: On a practical level, this would be more better described as a prototype for the iPhone 8 + iOS X ... or something a bit further out than next year. Is that too nit-picky? Probably. As far as the aesthetics go - it looks almost exactly like the HTC One, albeit without a bezel. For a product designer with imaginative ideas about nearly everything else, I would have hoped for a more interesting enclosure design.

kenkam 13y ago

It is obvious that this is not an attempt at trying to design a plausible iPhone. It is an attempt to show case his design chops. Unfortunately, I can't give him full marks on his design, I was put off by his "Accidental Gesture Recognition" paragraph. It is a short paragraph of 7 lines, 3 of which are hyphenated. Pedantry aside, I think the mockups look great.

arms 13y ago

Very impressive - I'd love to have something that looked that damn cool. The wrap around screen kept making me think of infinity pools.

mkr-hn 13y ago

The iPhone, as boring as it is, at least has a distinct look. This is a rectangle with beveled corners.

coin 13y ago

Yet his site doesn't allow pinchzoom on mobile devices

bittired 13y ago

A neat design here, but I'd rather see designs that are more creative. What about an iShirt whose color could change via bluetooth from your phone, depending on how many unread emails you have? And the quote about graphene was distracting to me because I know for certain that Apple would not have a layer of graphene that would be as thick as Saran Wrap. That's crazy talk- too expensive. I know he wasn't saying it would be that thick, but that was the first thing that came to mind: "no way they would do that".

shinratdr 13y ago

Someone said on Twitter the other day, I wonder what UI designers could come up with if they weren't hamstrung by the fact that it needs to be built by a developer? I can't help but think of exactly that whenever I see one of these hardware mockups. This is what designers can do when they aren't hamstrung by the need to actually have it built by hardware engineers. An interesting intellectual exercise and a beautiful design, but that only applies if you think it could be real, or else it's the hardware equivalent of a Minority Report interface. I just don't see this in my hand within the next 20 years. That makes it easy to be pessimistic. In reference to the top comment, that's why good Sci Fi tends to focus on how the technology affects the future society and interpersonal relationships, not simply marvelling at the technology itself. Calling this the "iPhone 6" mockup and not simply a future phone or even iPhone puts a certain expectation on it, as does the mention of specs that would only be impressive for a year or two. You can't have it both ways. Either it's an entirely theoretical mockup that can't be criticized and it's simply design work or I'm supposed to imagine it as the iPhone that's on the market two years from now with the specs listed on that page.

woah 13y ago
I am an interface designer, and the constraints imposed by those mean ol' developers are because they are forced to think through logical flows to implement them. The perfect ui would be a device that you wear in a small ring that reads your mind to find out exactly what you want, and using superhuman ai, strategizes the perfect way to get it for you. There. I did it.
- shinratdr 13y ago
  For the record that's kind of my point. You need to have a balance and "it's just a portfolio demo" rings hollow to me.

TallboyOne 13y ago

Is this a joke? Lol, how are you supposed to use this with one hand. The design (from a presentation perspective) is beautiful, the idea from a practicality standpoint is 100% useless. I couldn't tell if this was serious until I was like 75% of the way through.

synor 13y ago

This is not even a good portfolio piece. The typography is really bad.

jl6 13y ago

Dishonest linkbait headline.

scoyote 13y ago

Ок. It's cool! Do same OS cool concept and I am ready to buy.

drivebyacct2 13y ago

Hilarious. This is a joke right? Like, 180/183 people ironically upvoted this right?

Tloewald 13y ago

Here's where the guy loses me: the sample movie on the phone is Lone Ranger.

alan_cx 13y ago

It does look great, but Im not sure my hands and fingers would fare well if the edges got chipped. A chipped edge would not be enough to pay lots to get it fixed, where as a shattered screen is. As a result, I see minor injury being a bit of a problem.

ksec 13y ago

I think the Calculation for Screen Size were off. ( Unless I am Wrong ) Assuming no changes in Resolution Scale to iPhone 5, a Display that is 5.86cm Width would be 4.7" Diagonal. Which incidentally fits in with the latest rumours on 4.7" display. Um....

cseelus 13y ago

Wow, some of the reactions here are really petty-minded to me. This guy just made mockups of a future iteration he imagined, of a product he probably uses and likes. Something designers have published to the interwebs for years. It can be fun and a nice way to improve on your skills. It don't get what justifies the hate some people here show up with. If you don't like it, just skip it and enjoy something else.

joesb 13y ago

I like pure design concept, without regarding to technical limitation. I like pure technology design concept without regarding to economical consideration. This design is just plain form design plus some wanna-be technical terms.

JohnDotAwesome 13y ago

This would be the coolest god damn phone. If Apple made the smaller form factor again with a slightly bigger screen, I'd be on that. I hate the wonky rectangle of the 5. Thanks, Johnny. This stuff is fun to think about.