On September 7, 2005, Apple and Motorola released the ROKR E1, the first mobile phone to use iTunes, Mac fanboys started to envision a phone from Apple itself. And the rumors started popping with graphics designers starting their engines to emulate the design lines of Apple products and illustrate us how an iPhone would have looked. The Apple iPhone Blog tracked majority of popular designs and published them and many sites including Apple insider did the same, keeping us entertained all the way till January 9, 2007 when Jobs announced the REAL iPhone at the Macworld convention. This received substantial media attention and everyone now dreams of holding a REAL iPhone in their hand this month. We just thought this would be right time to remember the designers who kept us entertained and pay tribute to them.

Presented below are the close concepts ordered based on their closeness and design aspects (multi-touch, full-screen, no/few buttons, etc).

 The closest to real iPhone Designs:

A few designers were able to think along the lines of Apple engineers and created a close to real iPhone concepts.

1] iPhone concept by Mark Dhand:

This iPhone is almost 98% close to what the real iPhone is – the 2% was lost when the designer put the popping camera on the top – which made it non-apple. Rounded edges, full touch screen and reflective metallic body made it closer.

2] iPhone concept by John Pszeniczny:

This designer gets credit for creating many iPhone concept models, but most models were inspired by iPod and this one stood apart from others and was also close to the real one. It featured a touch screen, round edged frame, metallic body, but the major mistake made by the designer was to waste a large space on the top for the camera – we all know Apple never wastes spaces. Else this would have made to No. 1 design.

3] iPhone nano concept by Folletto Malefico:

This designer presented two concepts both were close to real iPhone in design principles. The iPhone nano is a prototype study based upon a few constraints (form factor, wheel, full touchscreen). Of course, this interface doesn't go anywhere (SMS issues, for example), but still it's quite interesting. The dialing style was real Macish and it was total iPod nano inspired design. And most parts reflect Italian designs (Alas the designer is Italian too – may be as the blog where I found it was in Italian language)

4] iPhone concept by goSQUARED:

This one had full touch screen interface, round edged frame, More space utilization as in any Apple designs, but it just only featured the iPod part and the designer missed to emulate the phone part of it. Else this would have been Numero 1.

Some Worst design concepts:

1] iPhone concept by Thomas J. Mrokon:

Reason: look the photo for how bad it is – would you have dreamt of Apple delivering something of this type L

2] iPhone concept by Matt Hoffman:

This is no iPhone just the normal telephone with Apple logo embarked on it.

Most others were iPod or Motorola inspired designs, they are presented below for you to rejoice.

Hats off to all the designers at least they the ones that really entertained us and who knows might have also been some point of influence to Apple’s real iPhone design. But Apple really have delivered a design of our dreams and we all hope to hold one sooner J