Apple will be celebrating a decade of iPhones next year and will mark the occasion with a special iPhone 8, which will reportedly be completely redesigned and unexpected.
The very first iPhone made its debut back in 2007, when the smartphone scene was just getting started. Ten years later, the iPhone 8 expected to debut in 2017 should be the most impressive iPhone yet, neatly crafted to mark the 10-year celebration.
For the past three years, Apple basically stuck to the same design with its iPhone 6, 6s and iPhone 7, but the next-generation iPhone 8 will reportedly come with a drastic change in design and technology.
Earlier rumors indicated that the new iPhone 8 will sport an OLED display covering nearly all of the smartphone's front panel, with the home button and fingerprint scanner mounted beneath the screen (no physical home button). The handset was further rumored to feature a metal rim around the edges and a glass back rather than aluminum.
A new report, however, claims that such suppositions are wrong and the iPhone 8's design will in fact be unlike anything we've seen before. According to Robert Scoble, Entrepreneur in Residence at Upload VR and veteran blogger, the iPhone 8 will rock a revolutionary design that won't resemble any smartphone unveiled so far.
More specifically, Scoble says the iPhone 8 will look like a clear piece of glass (likely Gorilla Glass mixed with polycarbonates for extra durability) with an advanced OLED screen, according to "several sources."
The "clear piece of glass" part means the next-generation iPhone 8 will be completely transparent, allowing users to see straight through the device so that Apple could pull an augmented reality trick similar to the experience Microsoft offers with its HoloLens.
"You pop it into a headset which has eye sensors on it, which enables the next iPhone to have a higher apparent frame rate and polygon count than a PC with a Nvidia 1080 card in it," notes the tipster.
Scoble further notes that the iPhone 8 will feature a new 3D sensor from Primesense. A whopping 100 engineers in Israel are reportedly working on the sensor alone as Apple is pulling all strings for the 10th iPhone anniversary and the first product unveiling in the company's new headquarters.
Citing "updates from new sources," Scoble also notes that the iPhone 8 will have the battery and antennas camouflaged around the edges of the display.
As good as this all sounds, however, is seem rather improbable that Scoble's intel will turn out to be accurate. Apple is likely years away from building the technology that would allow it to create an iPhone like Scoble details, especially with the battery hidden around the edge (and preferably lasting for at least a day on a single charge).
It remains to be seen just what exactly Apple has planned for the iPhone 8, but one thing's for sure: the next-generation iPhone is bound to be more special considering the 10-year celebration.
The company's latest iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus stirred plenty of interest, especially with rival Samsung Galaxy Note 7 going down in flames (pun intended), but they didn't really feature anything truly innovative and revolutionary. It will be interesting to see whether Apple manages to come up with something unique and dramatically different with its iPhone 8, or whether its innovation days are behind it.
