Since I'm the Engadget commenter who made the image this article refers to, I'll explain the thought process that led to the conclusion the battery MAYBE removable. Now I'll warn you, this may be long and I'm explaining why the battery being replaceable seems likely, not necessarily likeable.
The first thing that stuck out when I saw the phone was the seam beside the headphone jack. It seemed completely random and unable to serve any useful purpose so I turned to the internal shots to gain some insight as to why it was there. While looking at the internals, I noticed one of the seams on the bottom wasn't actually anything more than an aesthetic marking.
Now, prototypes aren't always going to look like the finally product. If the seams were byproducts of a handmade prototype, then it seemed very odd to me that they would go to the trouble of putting a marking on the opposite side to balance out a seam that wouldn't even exist in the final product. So, believing that the seams were important I noticed the fact that the ones that were broken through form an L shape directly around the battery. Surprise, maybe it's removable to access the battery I thought? Now, the battery directly adjacent to this seemingly removable edge happens to appear to have a slide in connection port, not the soldered in connection of the past (I've updated the image to show where I mean).
Now, at this point I'm pretty sure this thing has a removable battery. I think this L shaped cover opens up, but at no point have I considered how it might be opened. I notice another anomaly of the phone, "what's that pin-hole by the headphone jack"? The iPad has a microphone in that exact spot, but what sense would that make on a phone going to be held up to the face? The bottom seems much more likely, and it just so happens to have what appears as two speaker grills. Note these iPhones are pretty jam packed and speakers are generally large as far as components go. Would they really give up so much precious space to have a secondary speaker, only 1.5 inches from the other? It seemed more likely one would be a microphone, whilst the other a speaker.
The next possibility to rule out was that it was a reset pin-hole. Why replace the perfectly understandable/always accessible standard of holding down the power button, as it is now, with a pin-hole that requires a paperclip? Some would say having a pin-hole to access the battery is equally odd, but as it stands you can't access the battery in anyway reasonable so it's definitely a step up. I also considered that the little remote that came with my macbook employed a similar mechanism to access it's battery.
Now, I'm going to admit that when I that made the picture, I never considered the possibility that the pin-hole beside the headphone jack was a secondary microphone for ambient noise detection, and that is certainly a valid possibility. I just feel given how the battery appears to connect to the phone, where it is located, and the fact that one slit is for appearances only make it a very real possibility the battery is removable.
Now, as to the people saying that this prototype has a removable battery but the final design won't, designing such a complex mechanism to remove a battery when the much simpler method of creating a removable backplate to access everything would be much more likely for a prototype. Note that the design considerations for a side removable plate line up with the consumer's needs (avoids mucking about with the bulk of the internals) while a removable back plate lines up with a engineers needs (simple to implement, gives easy to everything).
Now I'll admit that the need to even access the battery is questionable for most consumers, but having the option can hardly be considered a bad thing. What do we give up to have a replaceable battery? One little ugly seam, more likely less apparent than it is on this prototype, and two others that actually look pretty good. All this talk of loosing rigidity is baseless given that this design already seems much more rigid than previous the incarnations of the iPhone. Heck, maybe this design is just the european version given their possible mandate (which is admittedly old) to push for removable batteries in cellphones.
The first thing that stuck out when I saw the phone was the seam beside the headphone jack. It seemed completely random and unable to serve any useful purpose so I turned to the internal shots to gain some insight as to why it was there. While looking at the internals, I noticed one of the seams on the bottom wasn't actually anything more than an aesthetic marking.
Now, prototypes aren't always going to look like the finally product. If the seams were byproducts of a handmade prototype, then it seemed very odd to me that they would go to the trouble of putting a marking on the opposite side to balance out a seam that wouldn't even exist in the final product. So, believing that the seams were important I noticed the fact that the ones that were broken through form an L shape directly around the battery. Surprise, maybe it's removable to access the battery I thought? Now, the battery directly adjacent to this seemingly removable edge happens to appear to have a slide in connection port, not the soldered in connection of the past (I've updated the image to show where I mean).
Now, at this point I'm pretty sure this thing has a removable battery. I think this L shaped cover opens up, but at no point have I considered how it might be opened. I notice another anomaly of the phone, "what's that pin-hole by the headphone jack"? The iPad has a microphone in that exact spot, but what sense would that make on a phone going to be held up to the face? The bottom seems much more likely, and it just so happens to have what appears as two speaker grills. Note these iPhones are pretty jam packed and speakers are generally large as far as components go. Would they really give up so much precious space to have a secondary speaker, only 1.5 inches from the other? It seemed more likely one would be a microphone, whilst the other a speaker.
The next possibility to rule out was that it was a reset pin-hole. Why replace the perfectly understandable/always accessible standard of holding down the power button, as it is now, with a pin-hole that requires a paperclip? Some would say having a pin-hole to access the battery is equally odd, but as it stands you can't access the battery in anyway reasonable so it's definitely a step up. I also considered that the little remote that came with my macbook employed a similar mechanism to access it's battery.
Now, I'm going to admit that when I that made the picture, I never considered the possibility that the pin-hole beside the headphone jack was a secondary microphone for ambient noise detection, and that is certainly a valid possibility. I just feel given how the battery appears to connect to the phone, where it is located, and the fact that one slit is for appearances only make it a very real possibility the battery is removable.
Now, as to the people saying that this prototype has a removable battery but the final design won't, designing such a complex mechanism to remove a battery when the much simpler method of creating a removable backplate to access everything would be much more likely for a prototype. Note that the design considerations for a side removable plate line up with the consumer's needs (avoids mucking about with the bulk of the internals) while a removable back plate lines up with a engineers needs (simple to implement, gives easy to everything).
Now I'll admit that the need to even access the battery is questionable for most consumers, but having the option can hardly be considered a bad thing. What do we give up to have a replaceable battery? One little ugly seam, more likely less apparent than it is on this prototype, and two others that actually look pretty good. All this talk of loosing rigidity is baseless given that this design already seems much more rigid than previous the incarnations of the iPhone. Heck, maybe this design is just the european version given their possible mandate (which is admittedly old) to push for removable batteries in cellphones.
