Rumors suggest the iPhone 13 may have a portless counterpart — we take a look at the story so far.
In 2021, more than ten years after the beginning of the smartphone revolution, it is easy to forget how many design trends have been and gone. Since 2007, with the launch of the first iPhone, we have lost keyboards, buttons, ports, bezels and more in the quest for ‘less’. What the ‘perfect’ smartphone is supposed to look like is a question that has yet to find an answer, but is one that designers are constantly working to solve. It seems at the moment that the solution may be a glass sandwich with a screen and nothing else, and 2021 is looking increasingly likely as the year that this ‘final’ design may appear. Crucially, it is Apple that is expected to lead the charge. Apple occupies an odd position in the smartphone market, having a reputation for incremental conservatism in design, but regularly leading the charge in new trends. Apple has pioneered such beloved changes as the screen notch, face unlock, multiple rear cameras, the removal of the headphone jack and fingerprint sensors. Such is the cultural heft and influence of the company that choices it makes tend to be accepted by the public at large. Wireless charging came much closer to hitting the mainstream when Apple adopted the tech in its handsets, and the true wireless earbud market exploded when the headphone jack was dropped and AirPods were first sold as an alternative to wired options. If the natural evolution of phone design is towards something ‘portless’, then it is likely that only Apple could pull the execution off in such a way that it became mainstream. And Apple, to date, has been one of the few companies with the ‘courage’ to pull off such decisions… could it be set to happen with the iPhone 13? Some leaks and rumors suggest one of those handsets will be portless… so how likely is it to happen? What is the point in going portless? There are many schools of thought on the issue.
