Subtexts in Apple's Sept. 10 iPhone event | TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

21 Sep 2013 • tuaw.com

iPhone 5s. New colors, and it looks similar to the 5 and 4S. The subtext: This basic body design is here for the foreseeable future. Not including new colors and a larger screen size, this general design has been in place since the iPhone 4 was introduced three years go. Consider the iMac. Once Apple hit on the “display on a pedestal” design with the iMac G5, it’s refined it, refined it, refined it. Even the current-generation iMac is a clear descendent of that 2004 model.

This sounds hard to argue with at first glance but I’d have to point out if “basic body design” could really be replaced with “form factor”… honestly a 2004 G5 iMac looks about as much like a 2013 Intel iMac as the original iPhone looks like an iPhone 5s.  The form factor has (mostly) stayed the same, but the designs are still different and distinct.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the iPhone 6 or 7 surprises us yet again with a new body design we can’t yet imagine today.