Glenn covered the hot news yesterday about a rendering of a large screen iPhone 5 based on a sketch received by Joshua Topolsky at This is my next… Well, thanks to a clever photoshop artist, there is now a mockup of what a ‘unibody’ design might look like, pictured above.
In the past, Apple has tended to borrow styling from other products – the unibody MacBook Air was replicated across the MacBook Pro line. Therefore, it is conceivable they would go with a design like this mockup which mimics the side profile of the ‘slice’ design of the unibody MacBook Air. This would give the phone strength, which is likely needed if they use an edge-to-edge screen that Topolsky is reporting.
Let’s get out of fairy tale land for a moment. Other reports have indicated there will be no major design changes for iPhone 5 and I tend to agree. Certainly we’ll see an A5 chip and probably a better 8 megapixel camera, possibly even a universal world phone chip, according to a slip of the tongue by Verizon. I just don’t see a big design change, apart from improving the antenna. Apple has a track record of sticking with designs that work, just look at the iPhone 3G and 3GS. Besides, if Apple keeps the same front and back glass styling for this iteration they can maximize their research and development investment of the iPhone 4 by keeping that same basic design on the market for another year.
Intriguing as it may be, mark me down for not seeing this design until iPhone 6 in 2012, if at all.
[via This is my next…]