[DigitalJack]

The point of imagination is that it is not limited by constraints. How can you envision the future if you are limited by the constraints of today?

Steve Jobs is quoted in the 80's as saying that they aspire to make a computer that is essentially today's macbook or ipad.[1] It most certainly was impossible at the time.

I sure like mine though.

You know what you get when you limit yourself to the constraints of right now? The IBM PC Jr.

[1] "Apple's strategy is really simple. What we want to do is we want to put an incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you and learn how to use in 20 minutes. That's what we want to do and we want to do it this decade." http://lifelibertytech.com/2012/10/02/the-lost-steve-jobs-sp...

[rayiner]

> The point of imagination is that it is not limited by constraints.

But there's no real imagination here either. It's just a thinner, lighter iPhone, made thinner and lighter using materials that don't exist. Genius!

As an aside, this is how Jony Ive works: http://www.objectifiedfilm.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/01....

[wmf]

If you're not limited by constraints, why design an iPhone? Why not design a superhuman AI that communicates with the user's brain via phased-array MRI? I would say that these kinds of concepts tend to use an undocumented and improbable set of constraints. The problem with improbable but possible futures is that there are so many of them that choosing a specific one has no predictive value.

[na85]

But Steve's comment has quantifiable goals.

Make it the size of a book. Make it battery-powered. Make the UI good (they failed on that one, but moving on)...

OP's link is just "Take an iphone and remove the edges and make it lighter by using a material that doesn't exist."

That's not innovation. It's actually incredibly formulaic, and completely different from the Steve Jobs quote you gave.

[sbierwagen]

  The point of imagination is that it is not limited by constraints.

You're right. My imagination says I get an iPhone for free. No, wait! Not for free, Apple pays me $500 to take it! No wait, $500 million! $500 trillion! Wow, I'm the richest person in the world! Imagination is great!

[jodrellblank]

In the next day or two, the LeapMotion input device ships[1] allowing all sorts of handwavy detection with a tiny box.

Apple have patented gesture recognition detected by the cameras for, e.g. page scrolling.

What does this "unlimited imagination" future iPhone have for an input improvement? Nokia feature-phone soft-buttons from 2002.

[1] https://www.leapmotion.com/