It seems that the release of the long-awaited iPhone without any ports or holes is getting more and more portable. Apple has always favored minimalistic designs, especially over the last 5 years. In 2015, almost all of the classic ports were deprecated in MacBooks in favor of a single one - USB-C Thunderbolt 3. In 2017, iPhone 7 got rid of the 3.5mm audio jack.
Not so long ago, the United States Patent and Trademark Office registered another patent from Apple. This time, we are talking about a smartphone with a solid glass body without any ports and physical buttons.
Apple is reported to describe its innovative device as a "six-sided glass enclosure". At first, it may seem that using this kind of a smartphone is really hard. However, Apple seems to have come up with smart solutions. For example, to charge the iPhone, you would need a wireless charging pad instead of using a cable. On top of that you would need wireless Bluetooth headphones instead of wired headphones.
There are touch sensors on the sides of the iPhone, acting as buttons since there are no physical buttons in there. Those 'button' are therefore completely invisible as they actually flush with the surface.
Chances are those sensors would likely vibrate in response to user interactions to let the user know they've pressed those 'buttons'.
The patent also reads that touch-sensitive side sections could also display some significant info about the iPhone, such as its battery life, as well as user notifications.
Another interesting thing to keep in mind that there's no way to inser a SIM card since there is not SIM card tray. This leads us to belive that the user would likely have to opt for a software-based "eSIM" option instead.
Hopefullu, the device has embedded chips on board, and those chips are said to be rewritable, which means the user can decide to change their operator upon request, just with a simple phone call.
The innovative device is expected to be introduced at some point in 2021.
