Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple has already expressed the difficulty and expense of producing a laminated glass front and back iPhone.

Expect an iPhone 4 sprint/chinese model to have a nice polycarbonate rear or cheaper acrylic backing,not laminated glass

I seem to remember, from the introductory video for the iPhone 4, that the glass lamination process is an 'optical lamination' one. It essentially means that the image produced by the display is seen much more clearly through the front glass; it's not performed on the back glass because there's no display there.

What I'm saying is that the next iPhone(s) will still have optical lamination, regardless of what the back is made from.
 
Case Mate and others are proactive with designs and tooling, ready and waiting for production. Other than test units to prove tooling and molds, nothing is produced in quantity until Apple confirms the final design.

If this were truely the case (no pun intended), then why pull this off the web so quickly? Why would they try to hide it?
 
It's only surprising if you assume a redesigned iPhone 5 is about to be released.
I don't know why anyone is assuming that at this point.
The evidence seem to point mostly the other way: the next iPhone does not have a significantly redesigned appearance.

NO ONE has any evidence of ANYTHING. BUT the most legitimate rumor to date is these Case-Mate cases. Which ironically points to a COMPLETELY redesigned iPhone. Even without these cases, I have been 100% certain that the iPhone 5 will be a completely revamped, game changer. Guess will just have to wait and see who's correct. But at THIS point the rumor scales are starting to tip in favor of a "significant" redesign.
 
If this were truely the case (no pun intended), then why pull this off the web so quickly? Why would they try to hide it?

It only makes sense from a business standpoint. Why would you promote a product you may wind up never selling? Frankly, it seems quite irresponsible to have posted those product photos in the first place.
 
If this were truely the case (no pun intended), then why pull this off the web so quickly? Why would they try to hide it?

to create buzz? you need to realize that people get paid a lot of money to come up with ideas like "let's pretend to leak info on the next iphone to stir up a buzz about our cases" because this sort of marketing works really well. it's a form of viral marketing and as seen on all the rumor sites, it works quite well.
 
With rumours pointing both ways (i.e. redesigned not redesigned) I loved the picture Mac 9to5 had on their site the other day. It had been on a Dutch carriers site briefly. iPhone 4 sides but redesigned back, if (big if) this was the case then no wonder there are mixed rumours

iphone-5-render-3-dk-web-site-001.jpg


and then the other side from tech vulture the back here is curved as well

5.jpg


To me these look more Apple than anything else I've seen but again anyones guess
 
It only makes sense from a business standpoint. Why would you promote a product you may wind up never selling? Frankly, it seems quite irresponsible to have posted those product photos in the first place.

It's not like some graphic design tech at case-mate just did some doodling this morning and posted that page. A large company like Case-mate will have decisions from much higher up to start rendering images and building pages for these cases. It's likely that the pages were accidentally launched too soon. They probably pulled it when a webmaster noticed heavy traffic and blew the whistle that the pages were live.
 
I hope you're right. ...but did Apple upgrade the processing of the 3GS when they released the iPhone 4? Negative. Past patterns contradict your theory.

No but when Apple released a Verizon iPhone they did change the inner design of the case, the way the glass is held in is different and the way the back plate is held in is different.
So Sprint, which is 100% getting the iPhone 4 this year, will too get a custom design phone, Looking 99% identical in every way as the AT&T and Verizon iPhones but having a different logic board and inter parts ect ect.
The pictures of the leaked N94 iPhone 4S are nothing more than a Sprint model iPhone 4 rear glass housing.
I rip all flavors of iPhone apart every single day and the leaked N94 part is identical in almost every aspect of the AT&T and Verizon iPhone 4.

The iPhone 4 thats currently in China uses GMS technology. Thus it is basically and AT&T iPhone 4.

The talking with China Mobil for the iPhone will use a new LTE technology that Sprint is currently running multiple phones on the LTE network in the USA. So that means CUSTOM CHIPSET, CUSTOM LTE IPHONE 4.
So when you have a potential 1 BILLION subscribers of the iPhone 4 coming in the next months, Apple will be glad to bend over and kiss anyones combined butts with a 700 million to 1 Billion potential subscribers.

Theories on the iPhone 5 designs being nothing mearly then an iPod touch 5th gen.

Imagine this.
iPod touch 5th gen and iPhone 5 being almost identical in every aspect.
Add a date connection and a contract with a carrier and you have an iPhone 5.

It makes much more sense for a huge company like this to streamline their iPod and iPhone production wise. Saves you billions on the back end.
 
Well of course it's all just rumors. But we nearly ALWAYS see parts in the supply chain for new devices. ...there has been NOTHING for the mythical tapered iPhone 5.

There's no evidence that it's not in the supply chain. Apple might be keeping things under wraps.
 
With rumours pointing both ways (i.e. redesigned not redesigned) I loved the picture Mac 9to5 had on their site the other day. It had been on a Dutch carriers site briefly. iPhone 4 sides but redesigned back, if (big if) this was the case then no wonder there are mixed rumours

Image

and then the other side from tech vulture the back here is curved as well

Image

To me these look more Apple than anything else I've seen but again anyones guess

Thats so beautiful.
 
Bursting bubbles...

So not to disappoint anyone (and I don't know if this has already been stated because I didn't read all the way through the 6 pages of comments) but I don't think this would be the new iPod Touch. As someone already said, they would never have an iPod out-shine the new iPhone, plus I don't know if it's logical for Apple to expect it's developers (one true reason the iPhone is so popular) to develop an app made for a 3.5 inch screen and a 4 inch screen. The two just don't go together because there is no way to double the pixelation in .5 inches... But hey, I don't know anymore than the rest of you do.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A5313e Safari/7534.48.3)

Dude is completely right about the sprint N94 phone my mother in law is an executive with sprint and she told me that sprint will get it but it will be an iPhone 4 = N94...
 
Dude is completely right about the sprint N94 phone my mother in law is an executive with sprint and she told me that sprint will get it but it will be an iPhone 4 = N94...

I've heard rumbling from the Sprint community about 10/15 as their iPhone debut. But I really didn't care much since I am pretty much married to AT&T for the sole reason that I abuse simultaneous voice and data daily.
 
blah stuff I agree with blah...

, plus I don't know if it's logical for Apple to expect it's developers (one true reason the iPhone is so popular) to develop an app made for a 3.5 inch screen and a 4 inch screen. The two just don't go together because there is no way to double the pixelation in .5 inches... But hey, I don't know anymore than the rest of you do.

They would keep the resolution the same if they increased the screen size. Still higher rez than anything out there, and if it stayed around 3.8" or so, they could still sell it as a 'retina' display.
 
Is still conductive. Which means it wouldn't work as the casing would act as a shield to the inductor on the inside of the phone trying to receive power. It's possible you could have two rubberized parts, one for cellular antenna and one for inductive charging, on the back, but that seems to defeat the purpose.

Are you assuming this or do you know for sure? Reason I ask, is I was under the impression that one of the big draws to "liquid metal" was the fact that it would not interfere with wireless signal... Is this not the case? If so, is it simply the simplified production process and strength that makes it desirable?
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.