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Leaked iPhone 6s box again hints Motion backgrounds coming to new iPhones

Following the apparent leak of iPhone 6s Plus packaging last month, an image purporting to show the front of the iPhone 6s box has appeared on Dutch site Techtastic, following the same design theme. Like the iPhone 6s Plus box (shown below), which featured a gold and black fish that looked almost like a flower, the alleged iPhone 6s box shows what appears to be a partially golden fish against an all-white background, matching the gold or rose gold edges of the device. Update: Another image, supposedly showing a black and red fish on a space gray iPhone 6s, has also appeared.

Our reports leading up to the official unveiling of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus noted that Apple plans to add Motion backgrounds to the new iPhones, paralleling a feature introduced on the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch’s Motion backgrounds include timelapse animations of flowers, butterflies flapping their wings, and jellyfish moving against black backgrounds. New backgrounds containing animated fish and colorful bursts of smoke are expected to debut on the iPhones.

Despite the significant similarities in the alleged iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus boxes, however, there are some details that don’t match up exactly, suggesting that one or both are prototypes of the final packaging…

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus shipped in packaging that was minimalistic even by Apple’s standards, featuring nothing more than the basic extruded shape of the device on the top, accompanied by Apple logo and iPhone branding on two sides. By comparison, both of the alleged boxes return to branding on all sides. They also appear to show color screen images and expanded metallic details of the device designs on top, though they differ in the number of elements shown near the speaker: the latest shot shows FaceTime camera and proximity sensors next to the speaker, while the earlier one did not.

It is possible that the latest box image, apparently torn, was discarded as an unfinished iPhone 6 packaging design, but either or both of the boxes might not represent the final packaging. We’ll know more after tomorrow’s special event in San Francisco.

Update: Another image purporting to be of a fish on the cover of an iPhone 6s box, this time space gray with a black, red, and white fish, has appeared online. Reader Hector Carral points out that the fish are likely to be bettas, also known as Siamese fighting fish.

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Comments

  1. Alex Moran - 9 years ago

    The fact that the backdrop is white sadly points to the phones still using LCD rather than OLED displays. A shame really when Jony Ive himself called LCD tech very old when speaking about the Apple Watch.

    • PhilBoogie - 9 years ago

      Would you consider Unix code to be very old and should be replaced asap?

    • iOS design is largely white. Would be very heavy on OLED battery. There is also question of volumes Apple needs to think about – if they’ll be able to get enough OLED displays to supply demand for iPhone?

    • rogifan - 9 years ago

      I think we will see OLED as soon as Apple knows it can secure enough panels. Hopefully for iPhone 7.

  2. We’ll see tomorrow. I can’t wait.

  3. monty72 - 9 years ago

    Looks a bit bendy to me

  4. one thing’s for certain, the box will be prettier than the 6 and 6 Plus

    • applegetridofsimandjack - 9 years ago

      I loved the iPhone 6 packaging. They did not print the phone to not only save money but also for the environment. They had the awesome idea of just extruding the shape of the phone from the box. It was really simple.

  5. applegetridofsimandjack - 9 years ago

    It would be absolutely ridiculous if Apple were to only make motion wallpapers available on iPhone 6S and iPad Pro, iPad Air 3, iPad Mini 4. Saying the hardware of older devices can’t take it. Like they did with Siri and Apple Maps.

    • Maxim∑ (@MCaudebec) - 9 years ago

      Jailbreak an old iPhone and try to put Siri or Apple Maps on it. Watch as your phone constantly restarts due to low memory

      • applegetridofsimandjack - 9 years ago

        Dude are you serious? That is because jailbreak software can not take full advantage of the hardware like iOS can. Also, iPhone 4 had and has as much memory as the iPhone 4s which DID get Siri and 3D Maps.

        Apple did not allow Siri and Apple Maps’ turn by turn navigation and 3D maps on any other iPhone except the iPhone 4s and older because they needed more features to convince more people to upgrade to the 4s. If Apple had made Siri and all Apple Maps features available for the iPhone 4, what reasons were left to upgrade to the 4s? The camera and the processor. Not enough, and so Apple only put Siri and Apple Maps (all features) on the newest iPhone.

    • wdm6502 - 9 years ago

      It would be far more ridiculous for people to complain about a completely unnecessary feature that didn’t exist when they bought their device. Which is exactly why people *will* complain about it if it turns out that way :)

    • Totally agree. If there were no animated wallpapers there before – i get it. Maybe not enough memory, maybe CPU power. But animated wallpapers are there since iPhone 5, and they’re responsive as well, reacting to position and movement of the phone, I do not buy that putting on “traditional” animation is more challenging…

      • dr3459 - 9 years ago

        I agree these wallpapers should be on older devices but there is a serious chance they won’t be. Mainly because these aren’t animated wallpapers. Animated wallpapers are what have been on the iPhone since the iPhone 5 and android previously. Fully computer made graphics that move. This is more like the Apple Watch wallpaper/timelapse/watchface options these are time lapses basically, I think some are up to like 24,000 photos of an object to create a moving image. A time-lapse type video or even stop motion is a lot different than a fully CG image moving. This also could mean the comeback of the Panoramic wallpapers as well which were on the iPhone 5 betas but then removed because of battery drain.

      • Are you saying Apple Watch can animate wallpaper, but iPhone 6 can’t?

        I remember having animated GIF as wallpaper on my Sagem back in 2004…

  6. vandiced - 9 years ago

    Am I the only one who seeing a Betta and not a Koi fish?

  7. Daniel Simai (@SD456) - 9 years ago

    “The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus shipped in packaging that was minimalistic even by Apple’s standards, featuring nothing more than the basic extruded shape of the device on the top, accompanied by Apple logo and iPhone branding on two sides.”

    Actually, the iPhone 3G and 3Gs had colorized boxes, (here: http://bit.ly/1hTMH0W), maybe Apple was testing the older box design for the new iPhone 6s and 6s+, but we will know more tomorrow. BTW, I loved that on the iPhone 3G and 3GS box, the image was actually raised a bit, so your could feel the Home button’s concave curve.

  8. taoprophet420 - 9 years ago

    If Apple cares so much about th environment why don’t they use brown car board with stickers and ditch the bleached cardboard.

  9. tush4r - 9 years ago

    Any Apple haters stalking these blog posts?..

    • Can you still hate them even if you own a bunch of their crappy products? Chalk me up as one.

      • tush4r - 9 years ago

        I seriously hate the way they price their products, not just the products, accessories as well. A Sony/Sennheiser headphone is more durable than the Pods.

    • Charlypollo - 9 years ago

      The same amount as Apple sheeps.

  10. Can someone explain why motion wallpapers seem to be something new to the iOS? From what I recall, iOS 7 introduced them with the “dynamic” wallpapers with the floating bubbles.

    • o0smoothies0o - 9 years ago

      These are real objects/plant life/aquatic life captured by high end Phantom cameras in 300FPS at 4K resolution (they did that for the Apple Watch motion wallpapers). They are orders of magnitude better than floating bubbles.

  11. Nils Koenen - 9 years ago

    Its going to be waterproof, right?

  12. o0smoothies0o - 9 years ago

    Look at the lack of black border around the screen on the white phone (aka digital bezel) this is totally new. If you look up an iPhone 5S white phone box for example, they distinctly show the black border around the screen. I fully believe this is a new screen of some sort. Look at the black phone too, I think they are showing off the new screens with these boxes and new motion wallpapers. I think the whites and black will be insanely accurate, thus, the blending of the white background to bezel and black background to bezel. Coupled with the fact that there appears to be no digital bezel on the white phone, which, if there were, it would make the illusion of no bezel impossible.

  13. b (@therealdesib) - 9 years ago

    Regarding the space grey box, looks like a darker shade of grey towards the bottom but towards the top of the box looks identical to the current “silver” shade of grey. Here’s hoping it is a little bit more distinct than the current space grey 6! Otherwise I imagine this being a bit of a let down to those hoping for the darker Apple Watch or iTouch shade of space grey.

  14. Zoheb Khoja - 9 years ago

    SPACE GREY……<3