iPhone Concept Borrows iMac Style

With the MacBook now brought smack up to date with unibody styling, and the fully metal-clad iMac causing a stir on desktops, it seems like about the right sort of time to ask what the iPhone could learn from the new designs?  Happily Isamu Sanada – who you might recall from these fair pages in previous months – is one step ahead of us, and he's put together some concept art of what an iMac-inspired fourth-gen iPhone might look like.

The edge-to-edge glass and contrasting brushed aluminum are the stand-out elements here, and certainly leave the concept iPhone looking distinctive and, dare we say it, more eye-catching than the current 3GS.  However we're also left with the sneaking suspicion that the design – evolved after three generations already, after all – is beginning to date.

So here's the question: not only are we wondering whether the new stylings of the iMac and the unibody MacBook range could transfer successfully to Apple's smartphone line but, more broadly, is Apple in need of a significant refresh of their iPhone design language?  Let us know what you think in the comments.