I am sitting at a restaurant with a couple of friends, having fun with dim sum, when a pal asks whether or not he ought to improve to the iPhone 16. I ask him which iPhone he has. My pal ponders aloud, “The iPhone 14? Or is it the 13? I do not know; all of them look the identical.” He then pulls out his telephone, an iPhone 12, and arms it to me to confirm, as if I have been one of many guys on the present Pawn Stars.
My pal brilliantly and unintentionally makes a sound level. Current iPhone fashions look conspicuously comparable. It is a sentiment I’ve heard from relations, mates and Apple fans, and seen opined throughout the tech journalism sphere with headlines calling the iPhone boring, or saying the brand new iPhone appears identical to the previous one.
After all, boring is within the eye of the beholder, and such criticism won’t be apropos in 2025 as rumors point out that Apple will launch a brand new, thinner-style telephone, nicknamed the iPhone 17 Slim. The telephone’s main attraction could be its svelte design, forgoing the camera-dominant attract of present Professional and Professional Max fashions.
However I’ve to wonder if an iPhone that regarded prefer it took Ozempic would really excite Apple fans, who yearn for a really main replace. Present iterations of the iPhone have already got a bounty of options and companies which can be each important to our day by day lives and nifty however usually neglected. Subsequently, a slimmer telephone could be unlikely to shake issues up, particularly at a time when Apple emphasizes the iPhone’s utility-centric design, which makes the gadget as spectacular as it’s mundane.
When Apple launched its earnings report final month, it confirmed indicators of development and stagnation. iPhone sales rose 6% for the fourth quarter of 2024 however have been practically flat for the fiscal yr and confirmed only a 3% improve over the fourth quarter of 2023. Most corporations would like to have these financials. However Apple is held to a unique commonplace, and a few observers see lower than record-breaking outcomes as a weakness.
It is tough to know the way a lot these numbers have been impacted by clients who’ve grown detached to Apple’s design aesthetic and held off on getting a brand new telephone, or others who’ve jumped manufacturers for a foldable telephone, just like the Motorola Razr Plus. Clearly, there’s stress on Apple to innovate (have a look at the launch of Apple Intelligence this yr) and there’ll all the time be a burden on the corporate to be a client product chief for fans and shareholders alike. Since phones are nonetheless the most important product Apple sells, a majority of that stress falls on pushing ahead the iPhone’s design and growth whereas artfully pleasing its huge and numerous consumer base.
That may be a little bit of balancing act. Take it from tech author John Gruber, who publishes the positioning Daring Fireball. He says: If you happen to ask “the mainstream folks, the individuals who make up many of the billion folks on the planet utilizing Apple units, ‘Would you like a radically new iPhone that you need to study once more?’ … the reply is, ‘Are you out of your thoughts?'”
The iPhone X outlined what a contemporary telephone ought to be
The iPhone X marked a turning level in smartphone design.
However how did we get right here? The iPhone’s present design is the results of 17 years of refinements. Over its first 9 years, the iPhone went by means of a variety of modifications, some fairly revolutionary: It obtained taller, larger after which thinner. It misplaced the headphone jack however gained an additional rear digicam. The again went from aluminum to plastic to glass to aluminum once more, after which returned to glass with the iPhone X, remaining that means ever since.
It is as if Apple had been tailoring mock-ups of the perfect telephone for practically a decade, solely to lock all the pieces down with the discharge of the iPhone X.
“Apple being Apple type of obtained to this primary type issue with the iPhone X,” mentioned Gruber. “At that time, it is like, ‘Yeah, this is the best way they need to be.'”
The iPhone’s design has actually modified in small methods for the reason that iPhone X debuted in 2017. The iPhone X, XS, XR and 11/11 Professional had curved sides. The iPhone 12 and newer fashions have flat edges. The digicam bump appears to develop in dimension yearly and, for the reason that iPhone 11 Professional’s arrival, homes three totally different lenses on the Professional fashions. However by way of the iPhone X, the soul of its design turned an archetype for what a contemporary smartphone ought to be and is at present: a steel chassis to deal with the telephone’s internals, sandwiched between two items of glass, one for the show and the opposite with a digicam bump.
It isn’t simply Apple. Samsung, Google, OnePlus and others have all gotten to an analogous minimalistic glass-sandwich design with rounded corners for his or her smartphones. A lazy criticism could be to say that they are copying Apple, which isn’t actually the case. However a lot in the identical means that laptops now all have an analogous elementary aesthetic (in contrast with the wild early years of pocket book computer systems with trackballs, within the ’90s and early 2000s), it looks like telephones are beginning to settle right into a common look. And this ubiquity, as humdrum as some would possibly discover it, proves that the iPhone, and smartphones usually, have lastly turn out to be a mature client product, in the identical means laptops or cars have over a long time.
Samsung’s Galaxy S24 stands to the left of an iPhone 15. Yep, the digicam arrays are totally different — however not a lot else.
Apple’s earnings clearly show that the corporate is doing simply advantageous with its present strategy and does not have to disrupt an excellent factor for the sake of change. And far in the identical means {that a} breakthrough in touchscreen know-how was elementary to launching the unique iPhone, it will probably take one other innovation to really remodel issues.
“Whether or not or not [Apple’s] up for a radical shift in design is anyone’s guess,” mentioned Paul Snyder, chair of transportation design for undergraduate research on the Faculty of Artistic Research in Detroit. “You possibly can’t go extra minimal than minimal.”
Additionally try: A Billion Pixels a Second: An Inside Look at Apple’s iPhone 16 Camera Labs
Imagine it or not, iPhones was once fairly enjoyable
With a 3.5-inch show and that flat glass sandwich design, the iPhone 4 was as a lot a tiny jewel because it was a telephone.
If the iPhone’s present design is taken into account boring, you need to marvel when the gadget was thrilling. In 2010, when Steve Jobs launched the iPhone 4, he described the design as “glass on the entrance and the rear, and chrome steel operating round. And the precision of which that is made is past any client product we have seen. It is closest kin is sort of a lovely, previous Leica digicam.”
The earlier two fashions, the iPhone 3G and 3GS, had plastic backs that have been contoured to slot in your palm. So it was profound to see Apple make the bounce to the iPhone 4’s flat glass sandwich design. And for many individuals, together with myself, the iPhone 4, and the practically an identical iPhone 4S, are the head of Apple design. The chrome steel band made the telephone appear and feel premium, particularly with the band encircling that again of shiny black glass.
“You had Steve Jobs on stage geeking out about how the commercial design of the iPhone 4 was evocative of a Leica digicam,” mentioned Michael Fisher, a tech reviewer who helms the MrMobile channel on YouTube. “It was simply so beautiful, and it was such a lovingly crafted telephone that I had left iOS behind in favor of the Palm Pre and wished to leap again.”
That is the iPhone 5S, which launched in 2013 and appears practically an identical to the iPhone 5. Discover the chamfered edges.
After the iPhone 4 and 4S, Apple launched the iPhone 5, which had a taller, 4-inch display, in contrast with the three.5-inch one on earlier fashions (it is wild how small both of these shows appears at present). Apple changed the glass again on the 4 sequence with an aluminum one for the launch of the iPhone 5, which made the telephone even thinner.
Then the iPhone 6 arrived. It was slim and had a big (on the time) 4.7-inch display, curved edges and an aluminum again that wrapped across the sides and sported antenna traces. Apple launched a second model, referred to as the iPhone 6 Plus, with a much bigger, 5.5-inch display. However let’s put it this fashion: Nobody in contrast the iPhone 6 to a Leica. If the iPhone 4 exemplified the heights Apple design may attain, the iPhone 6 confirmed how the corporate may flip a product right into a day by day utility that everybody wanted — cue the report years of iPhone gross sales.
A pile o’ iPhones. From the highest down: the iPhone 5S, the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus.
If you happen to have been to mash up the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 6, you’d begin to see the place one thing just like the iPhone X and the present iPhone 16 sequence got here from.
“We have settled into this period now the place telephones are a utility. They are a commodity,” mentioned Fisher. “They’re about as attractive to purchase as a brand new microwave oven.”
Laptops, telephones and cars
This is a show window in Prague with a number of Apple PowerBook 100 fashions.
In 1992, my father, who was an architect, introduced residence one of many strangest issues I would ever seen. It was the PowerBook 100 that Apple launched in 1991, and it had a 9-inch black-and-white display, a lead battery, and a trackball (the place at present you would possibly discover a trackpad). It weighed greater than 5 kilos and value $2,500 (the equal of $5,800 at present). Fortunately, my dad’s agency purchased it for him to run this system AutoCAD.
The PowerBook — although it bears some squint-your-eyes resemblance to the MacBook Professional I am scripting this story on — appears ridiculous. There was a really apparent hole when it was closed, to accommodate the trackball, and it was chunky: 1.8 inches thick when it was closed. However 17 years after that first Apple laptop computer launched, we obtained the very first MacBook Air, which, very similar to the iPhone X, cemented what a up to date laptop computer ought to be.
Laptops, like automobiles, have had their design refined over a long time. And smartphones are approaching that two-decade mark.
“It is an unsatisfying reply to say that boring year-over-year revisions for years, between main updates, are actually the best way to go,” mentioned Gruber. “Nevertheless it’s the reality, and it is the best way all the pieces goes. Automobiles had a long time of innovation, after which reached a degree the place — can you actually inform a 10-year-old automotive on the highway?”
After all, cars, particularly within the US, are closely regulated, which in flip is mirrored in a automotive’s design. Regardless of the producer, in case you’re making an attempt to make a car, you need to think about a number of elements, just like the aerodynamics for gasoline effectivity, and security options for a crash, and you are going to find yourself in the identical common space as different corporations by way of design.
“I believe what the client sees is just like the silhouette. You have a look at a midsized CUV, for instance, and the silhouettes are very comparable,” mentioned Snyder.
Verify Out the iPhone 16 Professional Max’s Cameras, Show and Colours
And though telephones aren’t regulated to the intense that autos are, each smartphones and automobiles have turn out to be units that home our numerous ecosystems and software program. Apple’s income from its companies grew by 12% within the fourth quarter of 2024, and that is from issues just like the App Retailer, Apple Music and iCloud.
“It isn’t a telephone anymore, proper? It is really a horrible telephone, as a result of I’ve to take 5 steps to really make a name,” mentioned Greg Darby, who, like Snyder, is on the Faculty for Artistic Research in Detroit, as chair and affiliate professor for product design. “That is what’s occurring inside an automotive inside. It is the truth that it is extra than simply, ‘I simply wish to sit in a automotive and drive someplace.’ Though I believe individuals are beginning to turn out to be too saturated with know-how.”
iPhone Fold, Slim or good day, Moto?
Former CNET author Stephen Shankland tries out Adobe Lightroom on the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional.
Whenever you have a look at the dimensions and dimension of Apple’s buyer base and also you issue within the iPhone’s ubiquity, it raises the query of what can Apple do, if something, with new iPhone fashions past refinements. And the reply is likely to be to take a look at the revolutionary interfaces that yielded different important Apple merchandise. The unique Macintosh was a breakthrough primarily due to its mouse and graphical consumer interface. The iPod took off due to the scroll wheel, which is unfortunately no extra. And the iPhone was outlined by its touchscreen and software program.
“We have already seen the following interface, and certainly, we’ve rejected it,” mentioned Horace Dediu, an Apple analyst and tech commentator. “It’s, in fact, the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional.”
Dediu, who’s a fan of Apple’s headset, is correct concerning the Imaginative and prescient Professional. However we have solely seen the primary model. Simply because a brand new interface may be revolutionary and compelling doesn’t suggest it’s going to rapidly obtain extensive adoption. It took years for the iPhone to actually take off with customers. Although I believe a larger variety of folks at this level could be extra thrilled by an iPhone Slim than a Vision Pro.
This is a mock-up of what iOS would possibly appear like on a foldable iPhone modeled on Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip.
What if there was an alternative choice, although? During the last 5 years, Apple’s opponents have been experimenting with a brand new telephone design that looks as if it got here straight from an episode of Westworld: foldable phones.
“With a view to get any type of enjoyable lately from a telephone, by way of a {hardware} perspective, you actually have to take a look at foldables,” mentioned Fisher.
Foldable telephones arrived in 2019 and improved on a few of their preliminary wonkiness, notably sturdiness points and software program, solely during the last couple of years. They usually are available two varieties. The primary is a flip type, the place the telephone folds in half to turn out to be smaller, very similar to the clamshell flip telephones of the late-’90s and early-2000s, however with a foldable display. After which there’s the fold-style possibility that opens out right into a mini-tablet-size display.
Lately, the foldable telephone area has seen speedy development. A March report from IDC estimated that there’d be 37.6% extra foldables shipped in 2024 in contrast with 2023. The identical report tasks that corporations will ship 45.7 million foldable telephones in 2028. Remember, that is nonetheless a comparatively small quantity, when you think about that the identical agency estimated in November that there’d be 1.24 billion smartphones shipped in 2024. Now that we’re into 2025, it’s going to be attention-grabbing to see how these estimates pan out.
The Motorola Razr Plus (2024) is positioned half open, with its 4-inch exterior display lit up.
However as some Apple fans hope for a doable foldable iPhone and even an iPhone Slim, different corporations, like Motorola, are seizing the second to transform iPhone house owners into first-time patrons of a foldable telephone.
“After we discuss concerning the Razr Plus, we’re seeing that 25% of customers are literally coming from iPhone units,” mentioned Majo Martin, Motorola’s North America advertising director.
By comparability, Martin instructed me that 20% of latest Motorola Razr house owners in 2023 converted from an iPhone. She mentioned that development is pushed by emotional response. Once I reviewed the Motorola Razr Plus (2024), I had hassle remembering the final time I would used a telephone that was as enjoyable because the Razr. Motorola prioritized the expertise of utilizing the Razr Plus over just about all the pieces else, and there is a variety of worth in that for individuals who wish to have their telephone be one other technique to categorical themselves and their character.
Will Apple ever launch a foldable? And can it’s standard? I imply, the names “iPhone Flip” and “iPhone Fold” do have a pleasant ring.
“The foldable factor is a future chance that Apple would go do and that will go mainstream,” mentioned Gruber. “And if and when it occurs, it can inevitably be the very same story that we’ve lined so many instances, the place Apple waited and waited and waited and waited, and now they’ve a foldable. They usually’re not going to to say, ‘That is the primary foldable telephone,’ however they’ll current it like, ‘That is the primary good foldable telephone.'”
