You don’t get much more juicy than an iPhone rumor accompanied by photos which aren’t all that blurry, making this a rumor more juicy than an orange grove after a particularly excellent season. However, don’t get your hopes up too high, as there’s every chance the phone is nothing more than a clever fake.
The images you see here were sent to GSMArena, and supposedly show a future, or prototype Apple iPhone. It’s not like any iPhone you’ve seen before though, as gone are the flat sides and the Home button, replaced by a curvy design and a completely buttonless front panel.
A close look reveals iPhone 5-like speaker grilles either side of a Lightning connector on the base of the device, and a shiny, presumably glass section at the top. The entirely black front panel looks bizarre, and it’s impossible to see if the device has a screen at all, let alone the size of the bezel surrounding it. The shape of the phone is highly reminiscent of the fifth-generation iPod Nano, just on a larger scale, right down to the placement of the 3.5mm headphone socket on the bottom corner.
What makes these photos more notable than usual, is their similarity to a recently revealed Apple patent, which showed a phone with essentially the same shape and no Home button. Of course, the photo could be a render inspired by the patent, rather than an official prototype, but the timing is certainly coincidental.
So, what are the chances of this being a real iPhone and not a fake? To be honest, they’re not good, as GSMArena notes even the source from which it obtained the images, “couldn’t swear by their authenticity.” All this means it’s best to treat these images as a fan-made attempt to bring Apple’s patent to life, rather than the first picture of a radically redesigned Apple iPhone we’ll see introduced in the future. It’ll be interesting if it turns out to be the other way around though.
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