Of course, it’s not possible to be 100% certain about the iPhone 16 Pro design, or anything about it for that matter, before the phone is official. Apple can be quite secretive with its plans, and finding even the tiniest bit of info may be quite hard. But, I’m here to argue that maybe, Apple won’t go for this rumored design. Let’s talk about it!
The iPhone’s design over the years: cue in the same-ness joke
Which model of iPhone is this?
If you’ve been following the world of mobile tech design, you’d know that Apple isn’t exactly the company that dramatically changes its products every year. Or even every two years. Or even three… I mean, without even showing you photos yet, if you’re an iPhone user, you’d probably get me: I’m constantly picking someone else’s iPhone thinking it’s mine, even though they’re not even the same model or year of release!Now, let’s illustrate what I mean further. Of course, iPhones have changed over the years, but Apple’s design changes have always been pretty stable and, on top of it, quite subdued, to an extent. We’ve not seen a crazy shift in direction from Apple’s designers, or weird experimentations.
You get my point!
The recently released iPhone 15 Pro Max (pictured in the beginning of this section, if you’re still wondering) for one, looks quite similar to the iPhone 14 Pro Max, and to the iPhone 13 Pro Max – just like the regular “Pro” models as well. The design is similar even if we go to the 12, 11 etc. The base models are met with the same fate. Rarely do we see significant changes in how iPhones look.
Apple and brand identity: the simple premium-ness of the insides of a Mac
Also, if you look at Apple products in general, the company’s brand identity stands out, including in terms of design. The company offers elegant devices, a simplicity that states “I’m expensive”. Clean colors, and sophisticated designs.
An image with the Mac Studio. Look at the cleanness and the entire look of the shot – simple, clean, premium (Image Source – Apple)
The company doesn’t make anything really “rugged”, or “sci-fi inspired” (wink-wink – Nothing Phone) for its phones either. Simple glass sandwich – and that’s it.
Then comes the rumor. As you can see in the images below, there’s nothing really simple or seamless in this alleged design. Majin Bu’s sources claim the new camera island design will look like a razor. I mean, what?
If you look more seriously at the design elements in the razor and you try to picture that on a phone, you’d find yourself with a rugged phone (or at least, rugged camera bump), or maybe something gamer-y like the ROG phones or Nothing’s phones (keep in mind I’m not criticizing Nothing, I actually like its designs, but I’m just using it as an example to illustrate what Apple is not).
But that look doesn’t really look Apple-ish. The image that Bu shares to illustrate how this might look doesn’t really look Apple-ish either, given the fact it’s making something that looked simple before look more complicated now.
Also: we’re not sure what the sources mean anyway
In a slightly older post, where the tipster first talks about the iPhone 16 Pro design change, he mentions that his sources told him ‘that was to illustrate the areas where the producers shouldn’t cover’. This statement in itself is very hard to understand.
Update from a source who asked me to remain anonymous. According to the source “This is literally just the safe area for producers. It’s representative of where they can’t cover.” This means it may not represent an actual change to the camera module. Personally I think it makes a…
— Majin Bu (@MajinBuOfficial) February 17, 2024
First off, what producers? Are the sources referring to the designers? Or ad producers?.. We don’t know. Also, the word “cover” doesn’t really give us more information either: the areas that are left to “cover” are the flash, the LiDAR sensor (which measures depth for portrait mode, for example), and the mic. What does covering those mean?
As I already mentioned, it’s pretty difficult to get any information about an unreleased Apple product. Heck, it’s difficult to get info about a released product (think about trying to find out a newly-released iPhone’s battery size in mAh)… so, I get it, and I don’t point the finger at the tipster at all.
But, these considerations have to be taken into account when trying to visualize what the new iPhone will look like.
iPhone 16 camera design change and iPhone 16 Pro camera change
I should also address the rumors (which seem more likely) about the iPhone 16 and its camera design change. Or, should I say, camera design backtracking? The rumors say the camera lenses on the iPhone 16 will be reverted back to being one under the other, similar to the iPhone 12.
But there’s a reason for this change, and it’s so that the base iPhones can record video for Apple’s new Vision Pro (the video will be able to be visualized in 3D). And also, it’s not too much of a change anyway.
But if we think about the 16 Pro, Apple really doesn’t seem to have a reason to change the camera island design. At least, not because of the Vision Pro – the Pro iPhones already have the lenses aligned correctly to record spatial video.
And Apple isn’t known for changing designs… well, ‘just because’. And even if, say, Apple needs to trim the camera bump on the Pro iPhones just a bit, for convenience reasons, I highly doubt it will create a Play button on its back to do so.
But of course, I should mention: that’s just my opinion and, sadly or not, I’m not an Apple designer so I don’t really know how all this will age. We have many more months to wait before we know for sure, but for one, I’m super excited to find out.
