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iPhone 5 to Get Aluminum Backing, Redesigned Antenna?

ugokutana said:
The original article in Economic Daily News said nothing about the design of iPhone 5.
Click to expand...

the original EDN article seems mislinked in the mactokara story. It links to an old article they also reference in a previous article: http://www.macotakara.jp/blog/index.php?ID=11211. I believe it was a mis-copy/paste.

Not knowing chinese, I couldn't find the article on the http://money.udn.com site. I took MacTakara's word on it. If you can read chinese, you might be able to find it.

arn
 
Not going to happen, one small point.

With an solid aluminium back there is no signal path for antennas.
The original iPhone had a large platic panel to allow for the antennas to send / receive.
 
ParishYoung said:
Can't imagine Apple removiving the flash from the rear camera

No front facing camera

Silent switch slides "up and down", all previous versions have been "front to back"

Altough this design may work for the cheaper iPhone Nano that has been rumoured.
Click to expand...

You realize the mockup is just that.
 
I would love Apple to bring the aluminum back to the iPhone. My original iPhone didn't get scratched at all (except for the Apple logo). My 3G and 3Gs which had the plastic back, had tons of scratches and cracks and smudged easily. My 4 has a few light scratches and is always smudgy. I know I could probably fix it with a case, but I prefer to be naked.
 
Those Chinese mock-ups look seriously ugly to me.

I think that given the latest updates on MBP and iPad we can remain confident that the iPhone 5 will NOT sport any significant redesign - possibly none at all, only spec bumps.

As for my personal taste, the current glass "sandwich" design is stunning (although scratch prone indeed - had to go for a bestskinever back protection.
 
callme said:
Not going to happen, one small point.

With an solid aluminium back there is no signal path for antennas.
The original iPhone had a large platic panel to allow for the antennas to send / receive.
Click to expand...
This. With an all-aluminum back, people would be screaming about even bigger signal-strength problems. Of course, Apple could go back to a partial aluminum/plastic back, like the first iPhone (as you say).
 
Looks beautiful. However aluminium back means weak signal, that's why we find those black stripes at the back.
 
Makes sense since apple is all about uniformity, I am thinking will see aluminum/glass all across all Apple products, the only product thus far to not see this is the iPhone.

This mockup is probably gonna be very close to the actual design, however I believe the front will be all black, except of course if it comes in white.

:)
 
An aluminum backing would be nice. For one, they would eliminate the chances of breaking the glass (by dropping the phone) by 1/2. lol

In all seriousness, an aluminum back and an antenna would both help with any antenna issues. I wouldn't even care if it had one of the old pull out antennas for a classy look. I mean, if it loses the 'grip of death' and obtains a decent antenna with good signal, that would make a huge difference to the iPhone. After all it is an i-"PHONE".

An aluminum back would be good if they are going for a consistent look throughout their products. Almost every mac product is aluminum (besides the macbook) If the iPhone 5 is the same thickness as the iPad 2, and has similar buttons, it will then literally be like the iPads little brother. Be quite cool! But all I care about at the moment though is iOS 5 notifications and a redesign of the UI.

Come on! Aluminum iPhone! 8mp camera! 720p face-time! Antenna! 16:12 display! 64gb! Dual A5! and iOS 5 NOTIFICATIONS!
and who knows, even smart covers for iPhone 5?

It could happen!
 
DickKnowsBest said:
Come on! Aluminum iPhone! 8mp camera! 720p face-time! Antenna! 16:12 display! 64gb! Dual A5! and iOS 5 NOTIFICATIONS!
and who knows, even smart covers for iPhone 5?

It could happen!
Click to expand...

Well it *better* happen if they don't do a redesign, since a serious bumps in specs is needed to keep high sales.

On the other hand - the current specs are quite impressive already, how to improve that significantly?
 
Maybe they will bring the all aluminum back on the iPhone again... This time make the entire back an antenna. Yet another engineering marvel.
 
Duralumin, a WWII-material can be more robust than certain steel alloys (Sources: A offline tech-dictionary from 1968 and wikipedia.org). The natural surface of Aluminium and Aluminiumalloys is Aluminiumoxide, one of the hardest materials on this planet.

A Duralumin-case will be several times stronger, than a glass-based design.
 
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I can't see Apple going back on a design. They have moved forward from the curved backs.
 
are you guys insane? First of all, when did a single Chinese Apple device rumour ever pan out? Hum what was it, the iPad 2 will have an SD card and a retina display based on some prototype case that Apple commissioned and some unsubstantiated rumour that Apple is ordering very high density screens. Really? I don't know if Apple is abandoning the all glass body however what I do know is that it is impossible to have a working antenna encased in aluminium. What Apple is probably doing is, redesigning the iPod Touch body if anything. There was a very good reason for moving away from the aluminium body of the original iPhone and it has nothing to do with aesthetics. But hey it's a free country and you can believe what you want. Just don't be disappointed when the new iPhone comes out and it's nothing like what you expected ...
 
Aluminum won't work. There's a reason they left it when they went 3G. You won't get any signal over 3G with an all aluminum casing. There's a reason why the 3G iPads have a little plastic section at the top, it needs it to get any signal.

This is simply a 3G/3GS knockoff.

I doubt they'll may any dramatic external changes on iPhone 5, it's mostly going to be better internal hardware. It seems they are on 2 year cycle on design now. The only exception was the first iPhone to 3G, and for the reasons in my first paragraph. They had to when going to a 3G chip.
 
I love the mockup. However, I don't know how signals would get through the aluminum back? They needed a black plastic strip on the original iPhone as well, and on the iPad 3G. I know they have overcome black strips with WiFi somehow, with the new iPod Touch and the WiFi-only iPad, but it seems that 3G needs more transparency...
 
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