Plastic scraps of brightly-colored plastic buttons from a Chinese factory floor corroborate rumors of the look of the purported “Budget iPhone.” Designer Martin Hajek, famous for beautifully detailed renderings of mythological Apple Apple products has produced the representations above. It is notable that the candy colors of iOS 7, which seem a bit jarring and discordant in the context of the precision engineered iPhone 5, might make more aesthetic sense on a phone such as this.

And despite Jony Ive’s history of chromatic restraint, the budget iPhone concept, based on months worth of leaks and speculations, is not his first foray into unalloyed bright colors. Ive was in fact the mastermind of the original iMac G3, that came in five colors of (what even seemed at the time to be) dubious sophistication. The “i” in the name stood for the internet and the new Macs were billed as “The most colorful way to the internet” in 1998. The design was charming, perhaps, in the way that the VW Bug has been, but its bulbous bright colors did not become hallmarks of Apple’s future products.

What did stick, of course, was the “i” before the name of every product, and the “works right out of the box” simplicity of their setup. It was not, 15 years ago, a high point of Apple design, but it was the start of the company’s aggressive courtship of the mainstream consumer. The original iMacs were not for geeks and they weren’t particularly for guys. You could get one for your grandma or your kid.

Such, i think, is the gambit of the “budget iPhone.” There are conflicting notions of what the hardware of the actual phone will be, colors aside. Most common is the idea that it will have the same screen size as the iPhone 5, just with a chunkier casing. Wedge Partners’ Brian Blair issued a report on Monday about possible production cuts of iPhone model by as much as 20%. Blair’s minority view expects that “Apple will repurpose the iPhone 4 with a plastic backing that will allow the handset to sell at a retail price below $250.”

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Read also:

Here are the best pictures of the budget iPhone to date (TechRadar UK)

Alleged White Budget iPhone Shows Its Face Do We Still Trust These Leaks? (G 4 Games)

New Photos of Cheap Plastic iPhone Leaked (Touch Reviews)

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