14 DAY TRIAL // The iPhone 6 has yet to reach the remaining half of Apple’s promised 115 countries (by year’s end), and CAD artists are already drawing up iPhone 7 concepts. If history is anything to go by, we should first expect the incremental iPhone 6S upgrade to hit the market.
Jimmy Benson is anxious. He’s one of the first (if not the first) to use computer aided design (CAD) tools to create an all-new iPhone concept, this time trying to depict the eleventh model in the series, the iPhone 7.
Edge-to-edge display, edgy design
His take on what the iPhone 7 should look like marks a return to the edgy form design first seen in the iPhone 5. But unlike the iPhone 5, this one has truly sharp edges and a display that does away with the bezel completely (at least on the sides).
Benson also reimagines the Home button, turning it into an Apple-themed sensor of sorts that seems to be made from the same brushed-metal covering the entire phone.
For all its beauty, this concept is more than likely very impractical. An all-metal enclosure would prevent the radios inside from talking to cell towers. Even Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals would be heavily obstructed.
In Benson’s vision, the iPhone 7 makes room for an extra row of apps (vertically). It isn’t clear if this is due to OS shrinkage or device enlargement, but it doesn’t look half bad. Also, there’s no wallpaper behind the icons. The dark background is reminiscent of the first generation of iPhones.
On the back of the device, Benson has stenciled “iPhone 7,” something that Apple will most likely avoid. None of the newer iPhones has used additional markers or designators to state the type or model. Only the first ones used to have their storage capacity written on the back.
To be or not to be
There are a lot of other design aspects in Benson’s concept that clearly won’t make the cut in Apple’s real iPhone 7 when the time comes, but if there’s one thing we would like to see replicated, it’s the edge-to-edge display, along with the reduced bezels at the top and bottom. In fact, it’s something we’d have loved to see in the iPhone 6 Plus.
Other than that, Apple may or may not return to an edgy design. One thing is for sure, though. If they decide to go even thinner, they might have to adopt a harder metal than aluminum. Something along the lines of Benson’s brushed steel concept, perhaps.
