
iPhone 6: An edgy concept - jason_shah
http://www.behance.net/gallery/iPhone-6-An-edgy-concept/7617209
======
geuis
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.

~~~
na85
It's so silly, though. Does this guy work/speak for Apple?

Is he an electrical engineer who can say for certain that the retina display
can actually be manufactured in this edgy way?

No, he's just a guy with Adobe Illustrator.

So... why should I care what he thinks?

~~~
ruchirablog
Retina display huh? Retina is just another marketing word. Apple's retina
display was surpassed by consumer technology more than a year ago. GS4 has a
441ppi screen while the Iphone 5 "Retina" display is just 326ppi.

~~~
na85
.... okay?

I'm not sure why you thought that I didn't understand that Retina is a
marketing term, or why it's relevant to the point I was making.

------
kyro
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
I think it's safe to assume that's pretty much the case for the majority of us
to begin with.

~~~
kyro
Which is really a shame. They're typically great fun, and potentially
inspirational.

------
shinratdr
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
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
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.

------
rayiner
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
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
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-
sp...](http://lifelibertytech.com/2012/10/02/the-lost-steve-jobs-speech-
from-1983-foreshadowing-wireless-networking-the-ipad-and-the-app-store/)

~~~
rayiner
> 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...](http://www.objectifiedfilm.com/wp/wp-
content/uploads/2009/01/ive2.jpg).

------
gaze
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
_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.

------
jasonwatkinspdx
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
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
Product Design != Science Fiction

~~~
m_ram
This is Product Design Fiction.

------
mynameisvlad
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.

~~~
aroman
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.

~~~
jblock
Regardless, I still don't want a big magnet in my pocket

~~~
bbrks
Yep, right next to all your cards. Brilliant idea if ever I'd seen one.

~~~
PeterisP
Are any of your cards still magnetic? In my wallet all bank cards use chips,
other cards (subway tickets, etc) tend to be wireless/NFC, the remainder (IDs,
licences) are either nonfunctional plastic, or chips as well.

OK, in travels some countries probably still try to read the creditcard
magstripe, that may be a problem for a part of population. Otherwise it's just
like worrying about the macbook demagnetizing your floppy disks..

~~~
bbrks
My railcard is magnetic only, as well as my student discount card and several
store cards.

My university ID uses a magnetic strip and RFID. However the university
disabled RFID usage on all of the printers, doors, etc. on day zero after
people found out you could easily spoof them.

Granted, at least my important cards use chips/NFC now.

------
jrockway
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.

~~~
jotm
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
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.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
please continue the PPI race so I can get an even more awesome Oculus Rift!

------
stfsbrb
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)

~~~
gurkendoktor
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.

------
b1daly
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.

~~~
adrusi
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.

------
AndrewDucker
I'm reminded of the Samsung prototype on the left here:
[http://www.mobilephones.com/news/samsung-reveal-flexible-
pho...](http://www.mobilephones.com/news/samsung-reveal-flexible-phone-
prototype/)

where the screen comes round the edge of the surface. Pretty, and a lot more
likely to be in production this decade.

------
kenkam
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.

------
joeblau
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.

~~~
cclogg
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
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)

------
cldr
> _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
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
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.

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

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

------
MrFoof
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
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
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
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)

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

------
LaSombra
I fail to comprehend this kind of fetish

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

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

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mtgx
1) Not very original

2) Not going to happen

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conradfr
And then you put a cover / bumper ...

------
jodrellblank
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)

------
lumens
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
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.

------
bittired
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".

------
brentm
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.

------
cseelus
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.

------
TallboyOne
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.

------
alan_cx
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
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....

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

------
JohnDotAwesome
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.

------
joesb
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.

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

------
scep12
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.

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

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

------
coin
Yet his site doesn't allow pinchzoom on mobile devices

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dlsym
Won't happen.

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jamesmccann
96GB drive? Seems fishy to me.

~~~
Bud
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
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.

~~~
VLM
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.

------
jl6
Dishonest linkbait headline.

