Goldman Sachs analyst: next iPhone to have Magic Mouse like casing
10:34 am, January 14th, 2010, John Brownlee
Although the Tablet is obviously prompting a degree of speculative slathering unlike anything we’ve seen for the last years, the last month has seen a persistent trickle of next-gen iPhone rumors coming out as well. The latest is courtesy of Goldman Sachs analyst Robert Chan, who claims (amongst some “no duh” predictions like a 5-megapixel camera and a June release) that the 4G iPhone will have a new plastic casing similar to that used by Apple’s touch-panel Magic Mouse.
It’s an interesting theory, and one we’ve heard before. Certainly, the Magic Mouse does seem to suggest that Apple is thinking about ways to increase interactivity with a device’s non-hardware surfaces.
The question is: would an iPhone with, say, a Magic Mouse strapped to its back actually be productive? Holding my own phone and tracing my index finger across the back surface, it doesn’t really seem like it would add very much to the regular iPhone OS experience, since it is uniformly easier to make a multi-touch gesture with my thumb or free finger on the iPhone’s display than it performing the same gesture more-or-less enantiomorphically on the surface pointed away from me. But ergonomic concerns seem like they’d be less important to Apple than concerns about the iPhone’s perceived thickness, which a Magic Mouse style backpanel could only make thicker. Unacceptable for a company as obsessed with design svelteness as Apple.
It wouldn’t be the first time an analyst just hit the Internet and issued an authoritative prediction on a new Apple product based upon the first two dozen search results that come up. One thing’s for certain, though: the iPhone is due for a more drastic re-imagining after three years, and I expect the iPhone 4G to be far different than just a slight spec bump.
[image via kumazo on Flickr]
Posted by John Brownlee in Hardware, News, iPhone | Comment on this article
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i cant wait for the 4g. if you google iphone 4g in images, you get some pretty nice looking concepts! (and some rather ugly ones) im hoping for an iphone with a more similar look to the uniform alluminium macbooks and imacs!
Benjamin, on January 14th, 2010 at 11:17 am
Not up to your standards elsewhere John.
What are you trying to say? Are you trying to say something?
Why would you even suppose tacking on a whole MM on the back of the existing iPhone form factor to create a horrid slab? Do you know nothing of Apple? Have you never heard Ive speak on minimal design? If they can arrive at such a beautiful form for the inexpensive MM, why would they go for chunky clunky for the phone? Ridiculous suggestion.
I’d say this is a a whole lot of words saying nothing John.
You seem to be becoming enamoured of Kahney-speak with this piece. Never a good idea imo.
A fail I’m afraid.
chano, on January 14th, 2010 at 11:25 am
i suspect that someone has mis-interpreted something.
it is unlikely that they would put multi-touch on the back casing. there’s no point. and yet that is the implication.
so i’m thinking that what was meant was that the new phone would use the same gestures on the touch screen as the magic mouse.
or that the casing would use the same harder plastic (to be more scratch proof) as the mouse surface (sans the touch issue)
or maybe both.
Charli, on January 14th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
Keep in mind that if the iPhone is going to continue to take share in the video game market this concept would absolutely do wonders to increase the iPhone’s value as a game playing device. Of course, I suspect if this rumor is true there would be additional utility in the “mouse functionality” on the back of the phone but for gaming specifically this could really push the iPhone to new heights in terms of gaming popularity and sales.
Adam Thompson, on January 15th, 2010 at 1:55 am