When I stumbled upon a translucent iPhone concept, my first thought was “OMG, somebody apply this to a 9.7-inch canvas”. Looks like 3D artist Ricardo Afonso listened to my prayers, creating this iPad concept which calls for a radical transparent screen that incorporates a pair of metallic stripes at the top and bottom, for the home button and FaceTime camera.
In theory, the iPad’s motherboard might be small enough to fit inside the top stripe, but we’d need some breakthrough, ultra-thin, ultra-efficient battery design to turn such an extreme concept into a reality.
Regardless, I’m loving how this guy’s brain works. An all-screen transparent design – talk about total immersion…
Ricardo shares his extreme design philosophy:
Sometimes I like to imagine how the design of some electronic devices will be in the future. In the specific case of tablets and smartphones, I imagine them as just a rectangular piece of glass that blends perfectly with the surrounding environment, without any elements of the hardware that could visually disconnect the user from the content during the interaction, improving the level of immersion and the user experience.
Here are a few nice stills.
If you want to experiment with the 3D model, download it here.
What say you?
From usability standpoint, would an iPad with a transparent screen make sense at all?