Apple probably won’t do this rumored iPhone 16 Pro camera island design: it just doesn’t fit it

The iPhone 16 series isn't expected to arrive anytime soon, but as usual, rumors and leaks are early to the party. Some of these sound very exciting, while others… let me just say I'm raising an eyebrow at a recent rumor from X tipster Majin Bu about the iPhone 16 Pro's camera island design .

Of course, it is not possible to be 100% sure. iPhone16 Professional design, or anything about that, before the phone is official. Apple can be quite secretive with its plans, and finding any information can be quite difficult. But I'm here to argue that maybe Apple won't go with this rumored design. Let's talk about it!

iPhone design over the years: a joke about the same thing

What iPhone model is this?

If you've followed the world of mobile technology design, you know that Apple isn't exactly the company that drastically changes its products every year. Or even every two years. Or even three… I mean, without even showing you pictures yet, if you're an iPhone user, you'll probably understand me: I'm constantly grabbing someone else's iPhone thinking that it's mine, even though it's not even mine. the same model or the same year of release! Now let's illustrate in more detail what I mean. Sure, iPhones have changed over the years, but Apple's design changes have always been pretty stable and, what's more, pretty moderate, to a certain extent. We haven't seen any crazy shifts in direction from Apple's designers, or any weird experiments.

You get my point!

The recently released iPhone 15 Pro Max (pictured at the start of this section, if you're still wondering), for its part, looks a lot like the iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 13 Pro Max – just like the “Pro “classic. ” models as well. The design is similar even if you upgrade to 12, 11 etc. The base models suffer the same fate. We rarely see significant changes in the appearance of iPhones.

Apple and brand identity: the inside scoop on a Mac

Additionally, if you look at Apple products in general, the company's brand identity stands out, including in terms of design. The company offers elegant devices, with a simplicity that says “I am expensive”. Clean colors and sophisticated designs.

An image with Mac Studio. Look at the cleanliness and overall look of the photo – simple, clean, premium (Image source – Apple)

The company also doesn't make anything truly “rugged” or “sci-fi inspired” (wink-wink – Nothing Phone) for its phones. A simple glass sandwich – and that's it.

Then comes the rumor. As you can see in the images below, there's nothing really simple or transparent about this supposed design. Majin Bu's sources claim that the new camera island design will resemble a razor. I mean what?

If you look more seriously at the razor's design elements and try to imagine them on a phone, you'll end up with a rugged phone (or at least, a rugged camera), or perhaps something gaming like the ROG. phones or Nothing's phones (keep in mind I'm not criticizing Nothing, I really like its designs, but I'm just using it as an example to illustrate what Apple is not).

But this look doesn't really look Apple. The image Bu shares to illustrate what this might look like doesn't really look Apple either, given that it makes something that seemed simple before more complicated now.

Also: we're not sure what the sources mean anyway

In a slightly older article, where the tipster speaks for the first time about iPhone16 Close to the design change, he mentions that his sources told him “it was to illustrate areas that producers should not cover”. This statement in itself is very difficult to understand.

First of all, which producers? Do the sources refer to the designers? Or ad producers?… We don't know. Furthermore, the word “cover” doesn't really give us any more information either: the areas that remain to be “covered” are the flash, the LiDAR sensor (which measures depth for portrait mode for example) and the microphone . What does it mean to cover them?

As I mentioned before, it's quite difficult to get information about an unreleased Apple product. Hell, it's hard to get info on a released product (think trying to find out the battery size of a recently released iPhone in mAh)… so, I get it, and I'm not pointing at all pointed at the informant. .

But these considerations need to be taken into account when trying to visualize what the new iPhone will look like.

iPhone 16 Camera Design Change and iPhone 16 Pro Camera Change

I should also address the rumors (which seem more likely) about the iPhone 16 and its camera design change. Or, should I say, a step backwards in camera design? Rumors say that the camera lenses on the iPhone16 will have become one under the other again, like on the iPhone 12.

But there's a reason for this change, and it's so that base iPhones can record video for Apple's new Vision Pro (the video will be able to be viewed in 3D). Besides, it's not really a change anyway.

But when you think about the 16 Pro, Apple really doesn't seem to have any reason to change the design of the camera island. At least, not because of VisionPro – iPhones Pro already have the lenses correctly aligned to record spatial videos.

And Apple isn't known for changing its design… well, “just because.” And even if, for example, Apple needs to reduce the camera bump on the Pro iPhones a bit, for the sake of convenience, I highly doubt it will create a Play button on the back to do so.

But of course I have to mention: this is just my opinion and, unfortunately or not, I'm not an Apple designer so I don't really know how this will all age. We still have many months to wait before we know for sure, but on the one hand, I'm very excited to find out.