iPhone 5 Rumour Roundup: New Case Photos Leaked

William Judd

It’s been almost a month since we first broke our story about the iPhone 5’s new shape on this blog. In that time, we’ve heard some fresh new rumours about the iPhone 5, and we’ve even gotten a few new shots of an interesting looking iPhone 5 case. Let’s have a look at that new case then!

The Hexagonal Case

While iPhone cases have used hexagonal elements before, they’ve never been quite this big. The design leaves quite a lot of the phone’s back plate visible. This is unlikely a technical requirement (as we haven’t seen this in iPhone 5 cases before) but it could speak to the increased strength of the back plate (and therefore a return to metal).

Click the image to enlarge

More importantly, the iPhone 5 case shows that same rounded design reminiscent of the iPhone 3, which seems to be almost a certainty for the iPhone 5. As you can see in the image below, there’s more evidence of the mute switch’s side swap, with that toggle now operating on the same side as the iPhone camera.

Speaking of the iPhone camera, you can see that the dual flash rumoured by some outlets has still failed to materialise, and looks unlikely to at this stage.

Click the image to enlarge

Curiously, near the bottom of the phone what looks to be a small twin LED or glass chamber of some kind. You can see it fairly clearly on the image above; what do you make of it?

Click the image to enlarge

On this final image, we get a good look at the side bumper buttons. It does look like they’ll remain physical buttons due to the design of the case, and the shape fits the traditional ‘rocker’ design more than the iPhone 4 style of having separate buttons.

Rumour Roundup

  • The iPhone 5 may not be the only new iPhone released this year. The Telegraph are reporting that a low-cost version of the iPhone 4 will be released called the iPhone 4S. This stripped-down iPhone will rely heavily on iCloud storage as its internal storage will be limited to 8 GB.
  • The iPhone 5 is set to release in late September or October, according to an AT&T executive who says the next 30 to 50 days will be increasingly busy in AT&T stores. Apple sources have also said that their stores will get busy over the next 60 days.
  • The Wall Street Journal has reported that Sprint, the largest telecom in the US not to sell the iPhone, will be selling the iPhone 5 (and iPhone 4) along with Verizon and AT&T. They also mention that the new iPhone 5 will be ‘thinner and lighter with an improved digital camera’.
  • TVC Mall have started to stock ‘replacement’ iPhone 5 cameras, which look to have its motherboard connector much further down than where it is now. This would make sense given the mute toggle has swapped sides and will now be right now to the camera, meaning that its machinery may take the space currently allotted to the camera connector.
  • TV ads are currently being shot for the iPhone 5, seemingly confirming the late September / early October launch date as iPhone 4 videos were shot about the same amount of time before release.

Conclusion

That’s all for now. If you’d like to share your thoughts on this latest case reveal and the iPhone 5 accessories, please let us know via the social media channels below. Thanks!