Hey, Apple, Let’s Shake Up the iPhone’s Design in 2025 — Lastly

I am sitting at a restaurant with just a few buddies, 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 cellphone, an iPhone 12, and fingers 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. Latest iPhone fashions look conspicuously comparable. It is a sentiment I’ve heard from members of the family, mates and Apple lovers, and seen opined throughout the tech journalism sphere with headlines calling the iPhone boring, or saying the brand new iPhone appears identical to the outdated one. 

After all, boring is within the eye of the beholder, and such criticism may not be apropos in 2025 as rumors point out that Apple will launch a brand new, thinner-style cellphone, nicknamed the iPhone 17 Slim. The cellphone’s major enchantment can 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 truly excite Apple lovers, who yearn for a very main replace. Present iterations of the iPhone have already got a bounty of options and companies which can be each very important to our day by day lives and nifty however usually ignored. Due to this fact, a slimmer cellphone can be unlikely to shake issues up, particularly at a time when Apple emphasizes the iPhone’s utility-centric design, which makes the system as spectacular as it’s mundane.

When Apple launched its earnings report final month, it confirmed indicators of development and stagnation. iPhone gross sales rose 6% for the fourth quarter of 2024 however have been practically flat for the fiscal 12 months and confirmed only a 3% enhance over the fourth quarter of 2023. Most firms would like to have these financials. However Apple is held to a unique normal, and a few observers see lower than record-breaking outcomes as a weak spot.

It is tough to understand how 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 cellphone, or others who’ve jumped manufacturers for a foldable cellphone, just like the Motorola Razr Plus. Clearly, there’s strain on Apple to innovate (take a look at the launch of Apple Intelligence this 12 months) and there’ll all the time be a burden on the corporate to be a shopper product chief for lovers and shareholders alike. Since telephones are nonetheless the largest product Apple sells, a majority of that strain falls on pushing ahead the iPhone’s design and improvement whereas artfully pleasing its large and numerous person 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: In case you ask “the mainstream individuals, the individuals who make up a lot of the billion individuals 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 cellphone ought to be

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 loads of modifications, some fairly revolutionary: It obtained taller, greater 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 method ever since.

It is as if Apple had been tailoring mock-ups of the perfect cellphone for practically a decade, solely to lock every thing down with the discharge of the iPhone X.

“Apple being Apple type of obtained to this fundamental type issue with the iPhone X,” mentioned Gruber. “At that time, it is like, ‘Yeah, here 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 measurement yearly and, for the reason that iPhone 11 Professional’s arrival, homes three completely different lenses on the Professional fashions. However when it comes to the iPhone X, the soul of its design grew to become an archetype for what a contemporary smartphone ought to be and is at the moment: a steel chassis to deal with the cellphone’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 can be to say that they are copying Apple, which isn’t actually the case. However a lot in the identical method that laptops now all have an analogous basic aesthetic (in contrast with the wild early years of pocket book computer systems with trackballs, within the ’90s and early 2000s), it seems 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 change into a mature shopper product, in the identical method laptops or cars have over a long time.

Apple’s earnings clearly show that the corporate is doing simply effective with its present strategy and does not must disrupt an excellent factor for the sake of change. And far in the identical method {that a} breakthrough in touchscreen expertise was basic to launching the unique iPhone, it will probably take one other innovation to really rework 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 take a look at: A Billion Pixels a Second: An Inside Take a look at Apple’s iPhone 16 Digicam Labs

Consider it or not, iPhones was once fairly enjoyable

If the iPhone’s present design is taken into account boring, you need to surprise when the system 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 working round. And the precision of which that is made is past any shopper product we have seen. It is closest kin is sort of a stunning, outdated 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 equivalent iPhone 4S, are the top of Apple design. The chrome steel band made the cellphone feel and appear 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 attractive, and it was such a lovingly crafted cellphone that I had left iOS behind in favor of the Palm Pre and needed to leap again.”

After the iPhone 4 and 4S, Apple launched the iPhone 5, which had a taller, 4-inch display screen, in contrast with the three.5-inch one on earlier fashions (it is wild how small both of these shows appears at the moment). Apple changed the glass again on the 4 collection with an aluminum one for the launch of the iPhone 5, which made the cellphone even thinner.

Then the iPhone 6 arrived. It was slim and had a big (on the time) 4.7-inch display screen, 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 screen. However let’s put it this manner: Nobody in contrast the iPhone 6 to a Leica. If the iPhone 4 exemplified the heights Apple design might attain, the iPhone 6 confirmed how the corporate might flip a product right into a day by day utility that everybody wanted — cue the report years of iPhone gross sales.

In case you 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 collection got here from.

“We have settled into this period now the place telephones are a utility. They seem to be a commodity,” mentioned Fisher. “They’re about as horny to purchase as a brand new microwave oven.”

Laptops, telephones and cars

In 1992, my father, who was an architect, introduced residence one of many strangest issues I might ever seen. It was the PowerBook 100 that Apple launched in 1991, and it had a 9-inch black-and-white display screen, a lead battery, and a trackball (the place at the moment you would possibly discover a trackpad). It weighed greater than 5 kilos and price $2,500 (the equal of $5,800 at the moment). 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 like the iPhone X, cemented what a recent laptop computer ought to be.

Laptops, like vehicles, 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. “However it’s the reality, and it is the best way every thing goes. Automobiles had a long time of innovation, after which reached some extent 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. Irrespective of the producer, in case you’re attempting to make a automobile, you need to take into accounts a number of components, just like the aerodynamics for gas effectivity, and security options for a crash, and you are going to find yourself in the identical basic space as different firms when it comes to design.

“I believe what the client sees is just like the silhouette. You take a look at a midsized CUV, for instance, and the silhouettes are very comparable,” mentioned Snyder.

And despite the fact that telephones aren’t regulated to the intense that automobiles are, each smartphones and vehicles have change into units that home our varied 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 cellphone anymore, proper? It is truly a horrible cellphone, 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 taking place inside an automotive inside. It is the truth that it is extra than simply, ‘I simply need to sit in a automotive and drive someplace.’ Though I believe persons are beginning to change into too saturated with expertise.”

iPhone Fold, Slim or howdy, Moto?

Whenever you take a look at the size and measurement 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 progressive interfaces that yielded different vital Apple merchandise. The unique Macintosh was a breakthrough primarily due to its mouse and graphical person 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, after all, the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional.”

Dediu, who’s a fan of Apple’s headset, is correct in regards to the Imaginative and prescient Professional. However we have solely seen the primary model. Simply because a brand new interface could be progressive and compelling does not imply it’s going to shortly obtain extensive adoption. It took years for the iPhone to actually take off with customers. Although I believe a larger variety of individuals at this level can be extra thrilled by an iPhone Slim than a Imaginative and prescient Professional.

What if there was another choice, although? Over the past 5 years, Apple’s opponents have been experimenting with a brand new cellphone design that looks like it got here straight from an episode of Westworld: foldable telephones.

“To be able to get any type of enjoyable today from a cellphone, when it comes to 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, significantly sturdiness points and software program, solely during the last couple of years. They usually are available in two varieties. The primary is a flip fashion, the place the cellphone folds in half to change into smaller, very like the clamshell flip telephones of the late-’90s and early-2000s, however with a foldable display screen. After which there’s the fold-style choice that opens out right into a mini-tablet-size display screen.

In recent times, the foldable cellphone house 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 initiatives that firms will ship 45.7 million foldable telephones in 2028. Have in mind, 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.

However as some Apple lovers hope for a doable foldable iPhone and even an iPhone Slim, different firms, like Motorola, are seizing the second to transform iPhone homeowners into first-time patrons of a foldable cellphone.

“Once we speak in regards to the Razr Plus, we’re seeing that 25% of customers are literally coming from iPhone units,” mentioned Majo Martin, Motorola’s North America advertising and marketing director. 

By comparability, Martin advised me that 20% of latest Motorola Razr homeowners in 2023 converted from an iPhone. She mentioned that development is pushed by emotional response. After I reviewed the Motorola Razr Plus (2024), I had hassle remembering the final time I might used a cellphone that was as enjoyable because the Razr. Motorola prioritized the expertise of utilizing the Razr Plus over just about every thing else, and there is loads of worth in that for individuals who need to have their cellphone 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 might go mainstream,” mentioned Gruber. “And if and when it occurs, it would inevitably be the very same story that we’ve lined so many occasions, the place Apple waited and waited and waited and waited, and now they’ve a foldable. And so they’re not going to to say, ‘That is the primary foldable cellphone,’ however they’ll current it like, ‘That is the primary good foldable cellphone.'”