The iPhone 11 Pro is ugly, but you’re starting to like it. Why?
By: Aldo Dimitri Argento
Tags: Apple, Choices, Design, iPhone, Beauty

Every year, on time as Michel Bublé on Christmas and your slight depression in June for the kilos you didn’t manage to lose, we have our new iPhone. The wonderful, the amazing, the bestest ever!

This year in particular, all the titles were talking about the lack of innovation and excitement, that even the strongest fanboys could not fake. Well, if I have to review in a couple of lines:

It is the best and most boring iPhone ever. Probably the phone you should buy, if you have enough money to don’t feel the impact on your wallet, because it is simple, easy and it works.

But this is not what I want to talk about.

What I want to talk about is the design. I am not a designer, and I already apologize for the technical mistakes (Bullshit) I could say, but let’s be honest. It is ugly. Not the front, that’s anonymous and outdated with that Notch, but the back.

This back

This part in particular

This triple camera looks like a patch on top of otherwise an incredible piece of design. It seems like a fake future product from an 80s ads, where they were putting a lot of cameras on to make it look techier. More impressive and stunning.

It is a strange industrial design concept, but it has balance. Its own equilibrium, that makes it work.

The more you go closer, the less you feel it. The arrangement of the camera is nice. The color scheme, the small metallic frame on each individual camera is fitting. The issue is on the 2 pieces together.

This is nice

This is nice

Together they just don’t work.

How did you start to accept it?

First stage: Interesting enough, you noticed at the beginning with the first leaked render. You screamed at non-sense, bullshit, and revolting turtleneck-wearing-dead-people turning in their graves, but each leak would make you more familiar with it. Less aggressive, and will to accept it.

It almost seemed that the leaks were left there to get you use to it.

Second stage: The Staging. Go back to the keynote. The screen was barely showed before the demo. Everything was about the back. In our booty obsessive society, it almost sound funny.

We’ve never seen in the past an announcement of Apple with so few information about the display, and not that much showed of it.

Take your time to look at the official video. The first glance of the screen is after 50 seconds, and for few frames, before coming back to the original focus on the camera.

The campaign is focusing a bit less on the experience, as iPhone used to sell us, and more on the product. The camera and the iPhone itself are almost presented as separated entities. Once you accepted the existence of the camera, where is the best place to hide something? Just in front of you. Even showing it to you as much as possible.

What we should understand is their power to change our paradigm of beauty and what we could possible accept, and then like. Our decision are influenced by habit much more than expected, no?

The case of Barcelona Metro campaign

Have a look at the advertising campaign in Barcelona’s metro, Plaza de Catalunya. An entire part of the station is full of pictures of the back of the iPhone. In all colors, shapes and cuts.

To make it even more true, the campaign is getting to its end. They only left a couple of picture. Guess of what?

10 points to You! It’s the camera. A really nice Macro of the camera. It is not that ugly anymore, no?