【2015 Archives】

Many long-time iPhone users — myself included — believe Apple's most beautiful015 Archiveselegant phone was the iPhone 4. A sturdy, stainless steel frame that holds two nearly identical glass panes together, just feels more solid, more Apple-like, than any of the iPhones that preceded or followed the iPhone 4 (except the nearly identical iPhone SE).

Now, some rumors point to a mystical iPhone X, a new iPhone variant that will once again have a stainless steel frame (instead of an aluminum enclosure) and two glass panes on the back and front — only this time they'll be curved.

Even though all this is heavily in rumor territory, designer Imran Taylor created a pretty elaborate set of concept images that show what this new iPhone could look like.

Surprisingly, even though the imagined new iPhone lacks a home button and has a huge screen-to-body ratio, Taylor's renders don't look like a drastic departure from the iPhone as we know it, possibly because it really does resemble its spiritual predecessor, the iPhone 4. Even the secondary display (we haven't seen that rumor, but hey, why not), located under the main one, is essentially invisible.

Taylor also imagines a vertical dual camera on the back (instead of the horizontal arrangement, as seen on the iPhone 7 Plus) and a magnetic Smart Connector (à la iPad Pro).

The new iPhone, according to latest rumors, is slated to launch alongside a more conventional iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus in the second half of 2017. The rumor mill has pushed expectations into crazy territory, with some hoping the device will basically be a slab of high-tech, semi-transparent glass, but Taylor's renders are more feasible and thus likely more realistic. Check out an overview of all the images in the video above.