Will the iPhone 6 really be as hideously ugly as we’ve seen in leaks?

Image Source: Martin Hajek

By Zach Epstein on Aug 25, 2014 at 11:10 AM

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For anyone even remotely interested in technology news, it has been impossible to avoid seeing at least a few of the dozens of iPhone 6 leaks that pour out each week. We’ve seen rumors focusing on the phone’s design, specs, price points, release date and plenty more hit the web in recent months, and we’ve also seen pictures of several purported iPhone 6 housings leak from multiple sources. As those images have hit the web, a concern continues to build among eager Apple fans: In all of the leaks we’ve seen thus far, the back of the new iPhone 6 looks… hideously ugly.
Early on in this year’s iPhone rumor cycle, a set of schematics supposedly leaked from Foxconn that were then used to create physical mockups of what was believed to be the next-generation iPhone’s design. While the design seemed plausible enough, the plastic inserts we saw on the back of the phone that apparently broke up the aluminum in order for the antennas to broadcast and receive data were an eyesore, to say the least.
Just as concern was really starting to mount, however, a report from the often reliable Japanese news agency Nikkei stated that the plastic inserts stemmed from some confusion regarding the leaked schematics. The lines mockup makers filled with plastic were actually outlines of areas on the back of the iPhone 6 that would contain glass panels, the report claimed, just like the backs of the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s.
Phew.
Apple fans breathed a sigh of relief, but it would be short-lived; subsequent leaks that supposedly show actual iPhone 6 cases headed to production reveal the same ugly plastic lines that we saw on mockups earlier this year.
So which will it be? Plastic inserts? Glass panels? Neither?
We won’t know anything for certain until Apple unveils its next-generation iPhone 6 during a press conference on September 9th. In the meantime, however, graphic design Martin Hajek has taken the two different iPhone 6 designs we’ve seen so far and compared them side by side.
Which one is your favorite?
A few of Hajek’s renders follow below, along with a poll where you can vote for your favorite iPhone 6 design.