It sounds like 2025 and 2026 could be big years for Apple product design. Reports suggest we'll see a radical shakeup of the tech giant's smartphone range with the introduction of an iPhone Air this year, and those rumours about a foldable iPhone and iPad aren't going away.
But what if Apple thought outside the box a bit more? People have been complaining that things are looking a bit staid with the latest iterations of the iPhone and the new 2025 iPad. Happily, an imaginative creative has been doing that for them, envisioning some hilarious (some say cursed) Frankenstein's monster Apple product concepts.
This is CURSED! from r/ipod
As brought up on Reddit yet again recently, Dana Sibera AKA Nano Raptor has spent a whole lot of time dreaming up Apple products that never were, from a Mac made from marble to an iMac with a Light Emitting Resistor Display.
Some of her ideas reimagine real Apple products of yore but replace prized features with more dated tech. How about an 'iPod micro' with good old-fashioned buttons? The click wheel was so overrated. Or an iMac CRT? Just pray that you don't need to plug in a USB cable.
As noted in a roundup of these hybrid monsters in the Shift Happens newsletter some years ago, they feel like “mock ups that mock”, sending up the sometimes clinical minimalism and self-congratulatory pretentiousness of Apple design. They also remind us that even Apple is fallible – remember the Newton MessagePad, the trash can Mac Pro and the first Apple Pencil's awkward charging method?
There's no AI at work here. Dana used traditional digital art software like Photoshop to envision the concepts. The resulting designs make me feel kind of nostalgic even though they never existed. A little like some of the Severance props. Perhaps that's because if you remember gems like the TwitterPeek, you realise that in an alternative history some of these could have made it to market.
What cursed Apple crossbreed would you create? Let us know in the comments!
