I love this industry sometimes, because it’s never too early to start talking about next year’s prospective devices. Sometimes we even make predictions before this year’s device comes out, which is either incredibly annoying or a fun guessing game depending on how you look at it. One recent example that comes to mind regarding premature predictions is the Apple iPhone, which… is pretty much always being speculated about in one way or another.

This year’s speculations regarding next year’s iPhone have been particularly intriguing because there’s a decent amount of hype going into the rumors that the 2017 iPhone is going to be what Apple has really been focusing on lately. Whether that’s true or just something people have glommed onto due to some disappointing changes in the iPhone 7 is something we’ll have to wait until next year to see officially, of course, but it doesn’t seem too farfetched to think that Apple would want to unveil something extra special on the 10-year anniversary of one of its most revolutionary products.

While I don’t know exactly what changes are in store for the iPhone, I do think that there’s one (theoretically) simple change that Apple could make that would be refreshing for the iPhone: more colors.

Apple has some history regarding a colorful lineup. Most people my age and older still recognize the rainbow-colored Apple logo pre-1998, with 1998 being the year that Apple changed over to the monochrome logo (which, aside from color, maintained its original design) we see today. However, in the same year that Apple axed the rainbow-colored logo, they introduced their iconic iMac G3 computers, which was revolutionary in three key ways: the entire computer was housed in the same case as the monitor, it was the first computer to use USB ports as the standard, and it eventually came in a variety of colorful translucent casings. You didn’t have to own one to know what they were – they were that quintessential.

Another huge addition to Apple’s line-up was the iPod, and later the iPod Nano. While the original iPod hardly swayed from neutral colors aside from the occasional limited edition designs, the iPod Nano was offered in an array of bright colors, which ended up being a big selling point for the Nano line.

The iPod eventually evolved to become the iPod Touch, which initially debuted in white and black colors. With the 5^th generation of iPod touches, however, more colors had been added into the mix, which included silver, space gray, blue, pink, yellow, and (Product) RED. The 6^th generation iPod touch also offered six colors, with but yellow had been traded in for gold.

Even the iPhone, which was once only offered in white or black, eventually expanded to other neutral colors such as gold, rose gold, silver, and space gray. Apple also took the iPhone in a somewhat different direction with the short-lived iPhone 5c, which featured an array of bright pastel colors like blue, green, pink, yellow, and white. Since the iPhone 5c was first unveiled back in 2013, Apple hasn’t ventured outside of the neutral color scheme for any of its current iPhone lineup.

I, for one, would love to see new colors come to the iPhone lineup next year. This year we saw the resurgence of the color black in the “Jet Black” iPhone 7, which has proven to be a popular option. However, I want to see some of the brighter, more unique colors come to the iPhone. While I wasn’t a big fan of the plastic build and soft pastel colors of the iPhone 5c, they do stand out to me in a crowd and add a touch of personalization. On the other hand, I am a fan of the design and colors of the more vibrantly colored iPod Touch line, and I think that some of those bold colors – particularly the blue and the red – would make a fresh and excellent addition to the iPhone lineup.

It’s not the biggest change, or even an innovative one – I think Motorola knocked that aspect out of the park – but I think additional color choices are an option that people would enjoy having, and is something we could reasonably expect from Apple, a company that has already proven to be a fan of color variety.

Readers, what are your thoughts? Do you hope that Apple adds additional color options to the iPhone lineup in the future? If so, what color do you think would look best on an iPhone? Let us know in the comments below!