Eagled eyed
@gruber I think you should take Apple to task for hiding the protruding camera in iPhone 6 shots. Seems no better than Moto's fake 360s.
— Garrett Murray (@garrettmurray) September 12, 2014
Taking a closer look at the Apple site he is right (sources 1, 2, 3). All side profile shots of the new handset remove the offending bulge and actually contradict its presence with statements such as “In creating iPhone 6, we scrutinized every element and material. That’s how we arrived at a smooth, continuous form.” (source)
Comment – Wrong Priorities
Needless to say Apple will get a lot of abuse for these somewhat needless edits and it gives the impression that the company is ashamed of the new iPhone form factors. Why else edit the rear camera off?
In some ways the abuse is deserved. The new iPhones (big front bezels aside) are stylish handsets and deliberately misrepresenting their designs unnecessarily misleads customers. This also comes just days after Apple was criticised for a similar stunt during its presentation where differing light sources made the new iPhones look disproportionately thinner than their predecessor, the iPhone 5S.
iPhone 6 protruding camera - Image courtesy of Apple
From my perspective there is a bigger and more important issue to all this though. The reason the new iPhones have a protruding camera in the first place is because they are too thin. The camera housing simply cannot fit within the 6.9mm (iPhone 6) and 7.1mm (iPhone 6 Plus) thick chassis of either model.
Read more: iPhone 6 vs iPhone 6 Plus: The Differences Between The New Apple iPhones
Which begs the question: why make them so slim? I know many iPhone users (and feel free to disagree) but thickness is not their biggest problem with the handset. In fact it wouldn't even make the top 10. Rather the biggest problem time and again is battery life and had Apple made the new iPhones slightly thicker it could have fitted bigger batteries (especially for the iPhone 6) and attained the flush finish its website images show the company clearly prefers.
Apple has long earned a reputation for not giving customers what they want, but rather for giving them what they need but I would argue the company has overstepped the mark here. Clearly Apple is not happy with the side profile the protruding rear camera gives to its otherwise stylish new phones or it would not have edited their representations. Maybe it is time to listen to customers priorities once in a while?
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