Steve Jobs was a design and supplies man. He grew up round houses constructed by legendary architect Joseph Eichler. Even if you do not know the title, you are doubtless acquainted with their signature function: floor-to-ceiling glass exterior partitions. Eichler’s affect on Jobs will be seen to today in dozens of iconic Apple Stores world wide and at Apple Park, the place the Steve Jobs Theater is, above floor, wrapped in 22-foot-tall glass panes.
Job’s love of glass is the explanation your iPhone 16 display screen is roofed in Corning’s Gorilla Glass. As recounted in Walter Isaacson’s biography of the late Apple CEO and founder, Steve Jobs hopped on the cellphone with Corning execs and satisfied them to start out making Gorilla Glass once more, particularly for the primary iPhone.
The relaxation, as they are saying, is historical past. How, although, would possibly Apple have fun this historical past when the iPhone turns 20 in 2027? According to a number of rumors, the iOS-running system is due for a significant makeover, one which may embody a big enhance in the usage of glass.
Glasserversary
According to GSM Arena, for this anniversary handset Apple would possibly cast off the bezel, the skinny black bar that presently runs round your Super Retina XDR show, fully. With the glass working not solely to the sides of the cellphone however seemingly spilling over them to the edges, the impact could be as if the handset had been made solely of glass.
This rumored design determination might need happy Jobs. His love of glass by no means diminished, and most of his designs had been constructed across the idea of mass-produced magnificence. Jobs, in line with his biography, as soon as took his crew to a Tiffany Glass exhibit on the Metropolitan Museum in New York to point out them the right way to construct repeatable magnificence at scale.
What made Apple particular nearly 20 years in the past is now not distinctive amongst smartphone producers.
Like Jobs, I recognize lovely design and beautiful supplies. Job’s determination to construct the primary iPhone chassis out of glass and aluminum is why I had such a robust emotional response once I first held the cellphone in 2007.
What made Apple particular nearly 20 years in the past is now not distinctive amongst smartphone producers. They all use Gorilla Glass and a few type of metal, aluminum, and even titanium. The battle for smartphone supremacy is now much less about aesthetics and extra about options, efficiency, and images.
That alone would possibly justify Apple fully overhauling the design for the iPhone 19. But making it nearly all glass will not be the precise strategy to go.
Never scratchproof
For nearly as good as Gorilla Glass is (most telephones now use the Victus 2 components, and a few add a Ceramic protecting for extra power), it is nonetheless not as sturdy as metallic, and even as resilient as plastic.
Every cellphone I’ve examined and owned has scratches, typically important ones, on the display screen. I have not dropped these telephones from an awesome peak or dragged them throughout concrete, and but they nonetheless have these blemishes.
Most individuals carry their iPhones in thick shock-proof circumstances to guard the comparatively fragile back and front glass. Like most smartphones, iPhones stay particularly susceptible on the corners; drop your iPhone good on the pavement and it might shatter.
Broken glass
Now think about what it could be like proudly owning a cellphone that is all however dipped in glass. Glass alongside the sides, even when they’re curved, might be far too uncovered. No one would ever dare carry such a cellphone unprotected, would they?
So why would Apple do that? As I stated, they wish to have fun 20 years of the iPhone, and what higher strategy to do it than with a design that is too valuable to carry or use. I might see a ‘Special Edition iPhone 19’, one which’s coated in glass and which prices twice as a lot as the most costly flagship. Few will purchase it, however some will find yourself in museums and behind extra glass inside glass-encased Apple Stores.
Those would be the excellent dwelling for these iPhones, if Apple does insist on constructing them.
