This stunning, transparent iPhone 16 Pro make us wish Apple was more of a risk-taker
The iPhone Pro family could be so much more fun
· TechRadarNews By Mark Wilson published 11 October 2024
The iPhone 16 Pro has many positive traits, but one thing it does lack is personality – and a new transparent mod of the phone has just shown us how much more interesting it could be if Apple released its design handbrake.
Crafting transparent versions of Apple's latest phones is something of an annual tradition for the Phone Repair Guru YouTube channel, but this year's might be its best yet.
The see-through mod naturally has echoes of the Nothing Phone 2, but the iPhone 16 Pro looks particularly good as it has "some of the most stunning internals we've ever seen in an iPhone", as the channel notes.
You naturally can't buy the transparent 16 Pro as the modding technique is a pretty involved, warranty-busting process. As you can see in the full video below, once the various components have been stripped from the back plate, there's the not-inconsiderable task of removing its recycled aluminum finish.
That's where gallium comes in – a metal with a low melting point that also looks very Terminator T-1000, it can seemingly eat through aluminum for breakfast. So the channel applied it to the iPhone 16 Pro and the aluminum (eventually) peeled away like paper, leaving them to clean up and remove the remaining paint to create a transparent back plate.
All very 'do not try this at home', but the impressive result – with a metallic battery, copper-colored wireless charger, and labeled taptic engine – has now got us craving an iMac G3-style iPhone.
Echoes of the iMac G3
We Made The iPhone 16 Pro Transparent Using... - YouTube
There is a close-to-zero chance of Apple releasing a transparent iPhone Pro, even though it did pioneer a similar kind of translucent look with the iMac G3 back in 1998. Still, all we really want for the Pro series is for it to get some of the bolder colors seen on the base iPhone 16 series.
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