The days are ticking down until Apple’s September soiree, but that doesn’t mean the rumour mill has to stop churning any time soon.
On Friday, the company gave a temporary rainbow-makeover to the iconic glass cube its Fifth Avenue store in New York City is known for to celebrate the end of a two-year renovation process. And the whole fixture bears a pretty strong resemblance to the multi-coloured logo design on its invitations for the big Apple Day event.
Fifth Avenue Glass Cube Gets Temporary Rainbow Look to Celebrate Reopening https://t.co/ESOkKjynUQ by @julipuli pic.twitter.com/ucwOlalH0P
— MacRumors.com (@MacRumors) September 6, 2019
Coincidence? Or could all these rainbows be some kind of coded message about Apple’s upcoming announcements that we’re just not seeing yet? What if it’s just a light-hearted reference to Apple’s original logo? What could it all possibly mean?
Though Apple has been as tight-lipped as ever about what we can expect on September 10 (September 11 in Australia), the company’s made somewhat of a tradition of hiding a clue or two in its notoriously vague invitations. Just enough to send speculators into a frenzy ahead of the big debut.
Plenty of rumours already floating around have given us a pretty good sense of the event’s upcoming announcements. A series of new iPhones to replace its current XR, XS, and XS Max models will likely be featured, though as to what Apple intends to call its 11th-generation devices (X1? 11? “Pro” something?) is still just speculation. Chances are Apple will want to capitalise on its upcoming streaming service, TV+, and game subscription service, Arcade, by revealing a new Apple TV. And there’s been plenty of talk about a whopping 16-inch MacBook showing up as well, just to name a few examples.
As for what these new rainbows motifs could mean, though, is anyone’s guess. Here are some of the ones we and other fans have come up, all with varying degrees of sincerity:
This rainbow-gate could all be Apple’s way of hinting that it plans to follow in its competitors’ footsteps in terms of a colour scheme for its next-generation phones. The big cube boy does look similar to Samsung’s recent Note 10 series and its kaleidoscopic Aura Glow finish. Huawei has been playing around with gradient colours on its phones for years too, so there definitely seems to be a market for these chromatic designs.
One tech reporter, Stan Horaczek, suggested this logo could be hinting at new camera tech in the 11th-generation iPhones. Apple’s rumoured triple-lens design for this series has been somewhat polarising, to put it mildly, so it would make sense for the company to include a clue that addresses such a hot topic. Horaczek draws parallels between the logo’s design and an Apple camera lens patent from 2016 to support his theory, which, if it turns out to be true, would be an impressive deep cut on Apple’s part.
My Apple invite graphic conspiracy theory is that it actually hints at new camera tech coming in the next iPhone. Here it is compared to the lens diagram from an Apple camera lens/curved sensor patent that showed up in 2016. The layers of the apple represent glass elements. pic.twitter.com/2yqEzh2ubX
— Stan Horaczek (@stanhoraczek) August 29, 2019
Or maybe it’s simpler than that, and the multi-coloured logo on Apple’s invitations simply shows which colours the new iPhones will come in: green, blue, yellow, red, and purple. It’s a bit on the nose if you ask me, but still well within the range of possibilities.
Personally, I hope this whole rainbow-gate thing ends up being some kind of elaborate callback. One that references either the most ridiculously or most epically designed products Apple has ever made depending on whom you ask.
That’s right baby, the iMac G3s! It’s 2019 and we’re already remaking every sitcom and cartoon from the “˜90s and early aughts, so why not revamp that weird obsession every tech company seemed to have back then with colourful, partially see-through designs? If I can’t get a new-generation iPhone in fruit colours like “Tangerine” or “Kiwi,” I’m going to be severely disappointed.