Apple may or may not be working on a mostly-glass 20th anniversary iPhone. This long-rumored passion project would not necessarily transform the iPhone into a fully translucent device, but would extend the front and back glass panels so that they almost meet around a far thinner metal border.
But like a rabbit hiding inside the secret compartment of a magician’s hat, the device, depending on your perspective, might not exist and may only appear through the force of sheer will or alchemy.
What’s not in question is that the iPhone will celebrate 20 years of existence that started on January 9, 2007, the day Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs held it aloft at Macworld in San Francisco. That it didn’t ship for another six months is unlikely to dissuade Apple from engaging in some introspection and external celebration.
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That might include a glassy iPhone.
On one side, we have an analyst stating that, owing to poor manufacturing yields, Apple scrapped plans for the 20th anniversary device. On the other side, we have Apple soothsayer Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman claiming the glass iPhone is on track. In the middle, though, is the reality of a device that challenges the limits of physics and promises more glass than metal.
I think it’s safe to say that Apple will ultimately produce an exciting, albeit practical, 20th anniversary device that we may get off-schedule in mid-2027. If the design is particularly challenging, then it may be a limited run, priced like a museum piece, and mostly never used by the relative handful or so Apple enthusiasts who manage to score one.
Buried under the [rumor] mill
The entire saga, though, led me to a different realization. I mean, what are we even talking about here? This conversation about a 20th anniversary iPhone is raging (and has been for years) just weeks before Apple unveils not just its iPhone 18 line, but the highly anticipated folding iPhone or iPhone Ultra.
That’s a big deal, even more so because the flexible device will be held up not by long-time CEO Tim Cook, but by John Ternus, who will have officially taken over the reins just days before (September 1). It’s a huge moment for the company and the tech industry.
And yet we’re still obsessed with “what’s next?”
No doubt, most tech companies suffer from this a little bit, but nothing like the insatiable curiosity that’s dogged Apple since the launch of the first iPhone. The tech rumor mill was, in some ways, developed simply to support all the leaks and guesswork surrounding much of what Apple does, especially as it pertains to the iPhone.
We’re still obsessed with “what’s next?”
This impulse didn’t take years to develop. It was on full display in 2007. This October 9, 2007, story mused about whether or not the next iPhone would feature an Intel chip. This CNet feature obsessed somewhat presciently over a potential name change (“the 2G iPhone”). And the 2009 YouTube video went on an iPhone design deep dive, even touching on the never-delivered “iPhone Nano”.
Apple, I’m certain, doesn’t mind the attention, and as long as the leaks are not breaking the law or revealing clearly stolen information, they’re happy to let the rumors percolate. For those working on these new devices, however, there must also be some level of frustration.
Just imagine if you’re working on a big project and your customers say, “Yeah, great, but what about the next one?” Or every time you serve dinner, your family asks what you’re making for tomorrow or begins speculating on what you might make and how it’ll obviously be better than what you just served.
Apple can never get away from attention, turning our distractible heads toward the future.
When I attend an Apple iPhone launch event, I always laugh at how stories about the next iteration appear right after the launch of the still new iPhone — one I haven’t even reviewed yet.
None of this serves consumers, who are usually still struggling to understand their current devices and maybe some of the new hardware currently on offer. Talking about a distant and sometimes improbable future only confuses and probably frustrates them.
Who is this serving?
Lately, the impulse to look past the present is creating this sonic dissonance wherein the pundits cannot even agree on the fundamentals of an uncertain future. They’re free to make proclamations, even wildly different ones, because Apple will naturally never tell them (or us) otherwise. The information is so contrasting that it becomes useless (even if markets sometimes move on these rumors).
It’s gotten so out of hand that we’re already discussing the iPhone Ultra 2 and the Ultra 3. That’s right, the unreleased folding phone has, according to rumor, been greenlit for second and third iterations. This is the only scientific proof we have that vacuums have weight and, in fact, get heavier over time. (Narrator: Pure vacuums have zero mass and weight.)
What if we stopped trying to fill these information vacuums with pure speculation and unfounded guesswork? What if we stopped fixating on the “what’s next” and stuck with the “what’s new,” especially at least until we understand the impact of the new thing?
How, for example, will the folding iPhone, which may or may not be called Ultra, fare? It too is entering an uncertain future where it will compete with the well-established Samsung Galaxy Z8 line, especially that oddball Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8.
As you may have noticed, for as popular as Samsung is, it doesn’t really suffer or enjoy a rumor mill in quite the same way. Yes, there are always rumors about the next Galaxy line, but they’re usually confined to the upcoming model release and not two or more years down the line.
I’m excited about Apple’s next iPhone and am honestly over speculating about anything beyond that. Perhaps you and Apple are too.
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lance.ulanoff@futurenet.com (Lance Ulanoff)
