More iPhone
5 whispers this weekend, as speculation about the fifth-generation
smartphone – already tipped to be an all-encompassing World Phone with
perhaps even support for T-Mobile USA 3G – prompts a new mockup with a
distinctly iPod touch flavor to it. Contrary to recent suggestions that
the iPhone 5 would be similar in specs and design to the iPhone 4, This
is my next is hearing that it will be “more like the iPod touch than the
iPhone 4″ with a thinner chassis more akin to the MacBook Air in
profile.
They
put together the mockup on the left – with what they admit is an
over-exaggerated taper – and thenCorey Daniels put together a more
MBA-styled alternative, shown on the right. The home button has been
enlarged, and now doubles as a gesture area, while the screen has grown
to an expected 3.7-inches – with a 312 ppi pixel density, allowing Apple
to continue using its Retina Display branding – with minimal bezel.
That
could be the result of new bonded glass technology, minimizing the
amount of extraneous space required, and perhaps even allowing Apple to
put the earpiece and sensors behind the display itself. It’s not the
only sensor shift tipped: there’s what’s marked in leaked (and unshown)
diagrams as a “swipe area” on the bottom and/or top of the iPhone 5,
which could well be an NFC sensor. Apple is believed to be working hard
on NFC wireless payment technologies, though there has been argument
over whether the system would show up in the fifth-gen phone.
World
Phone support from a GSM/CDMA chip – like the Qualcomm Gobi MDM6600
inside the Verizon iPhone 4, which is currently locked to CDMA mode –
also seems a lock-in, especially as it would open up the Chinese market
too. In short, rather than a spec-bump, the iPhone 5 could well turn out
to be pretty revolutionary.
