The only difference is on the bottom left they replaced the headphone hole with 6 speaker grill holes. Not sure why that's sleeker. https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/apple-l...

Because it's more symmetrical.

That's hogwash--no one cares about that. If anything, the move was done to expand room within the internals of the phone.

Yup. They did it to fit in the haptic feedback for the the new home button. I don't see how a 3.5mm jack would have fit after they put that in there.

I'd rather the jack, however.

Any idea why Apple is so doggedly pursuing haptic feedback for its touch button? The engine appears to take up a lot of room in the phone.

The only justication I see for it is that they're trying to unite the touch interface gestures of their Macbooks and phones.

A Moto X has the same symmetry, and manages to keep both a 3.5mm port and a USB port on it.

How can it be symmetrical with a 3.5mm port? Does it have two of them?

You should look up what symmetry means.

> You should look up what symmetry means.

Are you... trying to imply I don't know what symmetry means? Unbelievable!

> How can it be symmetrical with a 3.5mm port? Does it have two of them?

You couldn't look it up yourself?

Put one 3.5mm port on the centerline at the top of the device, and the microUSB port on the centerline at the bottom of the device. There.

The camera bump is a huge wart on the design, but they kept that and did not make the phone thicker to compensate. I question this rationale.

This is what I'm talking about. I don't really use my phone to play music that much (although it is definitely a non-zero amount). The dealbreaker for me is that they've made a device that doesn't lay flat without a case. Although, since it has that ugly bump on the back, it's not like I'd want to have the phone outside a case anyway.

Actually, it's not really about appearances for me. It's just that it wouldn't sit flat. Like a table with 1 leg that's an inch longer than the others at a shitty diner.

Apple permanently lost their "sleek" cred when they introduced the camera bump on iPhone 6. No way in hell Steve Jobs would have released that monstrosity.