Close your eyes and imagine the perfect iPhone. Does it have a Siri that actually works? Can it charge without even plugging in? Does it outright defy the laws of physics?
OK, Apple fanboys, open your eyes. Unfortunately that magical iPhone you conjured up is not the one that will be revealed in San Francisco on Wednesday. (Well, maybe Siri will be improved a bit.) If there was any doubt that expectations couldn't be higher for the big "iPhone 5" reveal, spend a few minutes watching this video of a next-gen iPhone mockup.
Animators from Aatma Studio designed this hypothetical Apple phone, which can literally grows in size as you pinch its screen. Among its other amazing features, this make-believe iPhone-and-iPad-in-one also scans for fingerprints, recharges its battery via WiFi, and has a voice-command assistant that does things a human assistant might do, such as tell you a flight is cancelled or when a FedEx package has shipped (things Siri won't do).
Surely, Apple loves the hype; the company ought to be proud that when people make tongue-in-cheek videos about the insane inventiveness of new gadgetry, they choose Apple to mock.
But it's also reminder of a concern Tim Cook and company have on their minds T-minus two days. They surely don't want a repeat of 2011, when people were hoping for a radically redesigned iPhone 5 and were disappointed by the minor upgrades introduced by the iPhone 4S. Even Siri, one of the most remarkable features of the iPhone 4S, underwhelmed critics with its beta-mode quirks. The company missed profit expectations that quarter and blamed the shortfall on too-high expectations for the new device.
Of course, Apple's almost certainly announcing the iPhone 5 this time around, based on its press invite. For Apple's sake, here's hoping consumers don't really expect next-to-impossible features like the ones shown off in Aatma's video.
[h/t Gizmodo via AllThingsD]
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