I'd rather they make the back uniform thickness so the camera bump is eliminated. Take the extra space for a larger battery. No one is asking for thinner phones but quite a lot of people would love phones with better battery life.
People are almost certainly asking for thinner phones. A very small portion of people probably would prefer a thicker phone with a larger battery, but I strongly suspect that the overwhelming majority of people prefer phones that are as thin as possible with enough battery life for an average day's usage, with the option of carrying an external battery pack for the times when more battery life will be necessary.
I am certainly in the latter camp, in fact, I would prefer an even thinner phone, because I am almost always within arm's reach of a charger and rarely even need "a full day" of battery life.
> People are almost certainly asking for thinner phones.
Are they? Almost everyone I know has a case on their phone; and I didn't have one until I bought the iPhone XS, which is over $1k and has glass on both sides.
I mean, don't get me wrong; I like the capabilities of the new iPhones. But the current design means that what most people actually use not the slick shiny slimness you see in Apple promotional materials, but thick sturdy plastic keeping all that fragile glass safe.
If Johnny Ives really wanted to be able to see people use phones the way he envisioned them, he should have designed it to withstand a 10-foot drop onto concrete. That would be a lot more useful than 30 minutes underwater.
> Almost everyone I know has a case on their phone
I don't think people put cases on their phone to make them thicker. I think they use cases to increase durability. Making the phone itself thinner means that the phone in a case will also be thinner, so that's perfectly compatible with the claim that people prefer thinner phones.
In my case - in the case of everyone I've chatted with that has a camera bump - it's to reduce the risk of damage to (or caused by) the camera bump. Otherwise, most of them would get a significantly thinner case, the rest getting no case at all.
1) Sharp corner in a material - creates a weak point.
2) when set on a flat surface, it creates an unstable bridge, meaning downward pressure on the phone is not supported. Think of how a piece of cardboard would react to being pressed down in the middle with only 3 of its corners supported.
3) It creates a point that can be snagged when moving the phone around, either on clothing or surfaces it's set on.
Personal opinion, it's really frustrating to have a phone that doesn't sit flat on a surface, to be unable to easily use it without some kind of case or holding it.
This so much, I had to give up going case-less after my Galaxy S2 because of that ridiculous trend of glass backs and generally fragile designs. Designs that are in fact completely useless except for marketing material because almost everyone will need to put a case around them.
> Are they? Almost everyone I know has a case on their phone; and I didn't have one until I bought the iPhone XS, which is over $1k and has glass on both sides.
And if you had a thicker phone, do you think it would obviate the need for a case?
I didn't have a case on my 3GS, nor my 4S, nor my 5S. I dropped them all many times and never had anything more thank a couple of nicks.
Tried to do the same with my 6S, where the glass goes over the edge of the phone. Cracked the screen 3 times, got a thin case. When I decided I wanted to upgrade to an XS rather than repair the screen again, the wife said only if you get a proper case; and I had a hard time disagreeing with her.
I'm positive that Apple could design a phone smaller than the combined size of the XS a good case, which would handle the drops I subject my phone to occasionally just fine. It would be a little thicker and less pretty than the current phone without a case, but much less thick and much less ugly than the current phone with a case.
This comment is weird. What you're saying is exactly what Apple has been doing for 5 years straight. The iPhone has been getting thicker each year since 2014 (iPhone 6 was the tinnest iPhone ever), battery size has been increasing every year as well. They've been increasing the camera size too though, so that's why it's still a bump.
The 11 Pro is 0.4mm thicker than the XS (and the X/XS were 0.6mm thicker than the 7). They're slowly getting there. iPhones are getting thicker and thicker by the year.
While I agree with you and felt the same way as you, I found that it wasn't as big an issue once I bought a case for the phone. Once you put a case on the phone the camera bump completely disappears.
I dont know what percentage of iPhone users go case-less with their phones, but I haven't seen one being used without a case.. and I have been actively looking for them.
I say this as a person who used to go case-less with my iPhones until my iPhones started having camera bumps. Then I started to get a case to rid myself off the camera bump. Last year I got the leather case, and while I winced at the ridiculous price I paid for it, I have been extremely happy with the choice. The blend of steel, glass and leather feels and looks great.
I have never used a case and never will (just don’t like the bulk they add). I do use an edge-to-edge screen protector on my XS max and keep the phone face down so the camera lenses don’t get scratched or smudged.
Been using iPhone since the 3G (X since release), have yet to smash one and have never used a case. Don't think day will ever come because cases suck and not dropping your phone isn't exactly rocket science.
Most people would not want this because people use plastic cases to improve drop performance (to the chagrin of Apple). A case on a uniform thickness phone shadows light and makes ultra-wide angle optics more challenging.
Not really, almost everyone I interact with uses a phone case. I have one friend who does not have a case on his iPhone 6, and he's actively trying to break that into a state of disrepair so he can justify upgrading to a new phone.
Can you count how many people you know that do not use a phone case?
I don't know anyone who uses a case. Why bother when you get a new phone every 12-18 months and cases don't stop the screen breaking (unless you get something absurdly chunky)
Now this is slick. I don’t think sensor fusion is a large focus for apple, judging from their lack of talking points on it. I would think with the resources to make their own ISP they could do some serious information theory work and put out photos that look far better than what smartphones do today. I originally figured that this low hanging fruit would be immediately exploited by phone manufacturers putting multiple camera sensors on a single phone, but I think that may be a little too optimistic and its something we’ll have to wait another few years to see.
That’s too bad. It looks like this is an area ripe for some academic work. The math is all already established and the models would not be intense to develop but would provide large payoffs. It’s a much lighter version of interferometry. I don’t see why this isn’t a more hotly discussed topic.
I feel like the best compromise would be to utilize the new, larger camera bump to add a slightly larger image sensor, even just 25-50% larger than the current sensors. I feel like it would make a noticeable improvement to the image quality, and justify the giant bump on the back of these devices.
I'm impressed at the sheer number of bumps. Pretty much guaranteed to be resting your phone on a camera lens. I wonder if it'll actually sit flat on its back.
