Design the Next iPhone

What it is

Design the Next iPhone is a 3D phone standing in the middle of a white page, a leafy wallpaper on its screen, and a tray of 32 parts underneath with an instruction to drag and drop them onto the phone. Some parts are the ones you would expect, a camera block, a notch, a volume button, a home button. The rest escalate: a hinge, an antenna, googly eyes, a rotary dial, a cup holder, a steering wheel, a copter blade. Under the phone a price line reads starting at $400.

How to play

Drag a part from the tray and drop it on the phone, where it sticks at the spot you let go. Pick it again to color it or delete it. Add a few and the price climbs, two parts took ours to $600. The tray scrolls sideways with an arrow, a clear button wipes the slate, and a present button at the top right turns whatever you built into a video, with a download button for keeping it. The page is one screen tall.

What makes it different

Phone-builder toys usually give you color pickers and case options. This one gives you a joystick and a pear logo and lets you find out what three camera blocks and a cup holder look like on one device. The price ticking up with every absurd addition is the quiet punchline, and the present button means the result is a thing you can send rather than a screenshot.

Why it is on Bored

Every autumn a phone launch announces that a slightly thicker rectangle is the future, and this page is the correct response. The phone is the canvas, the tray of thirty-two parts is the paint, and the price line climbing with every cup holder is the review. Ten parts in, it stops being a joke about one company and becomes a joke about design, and the present button turns the result into something you can send.

Tips

• Put a copter blade on top first, everything else follows from there
• Use the color control to make the parts clash
• Check the price before you present, it is part of the gag
• Clear and build a second one with only buttons

FAQ