Alleged budget iPhone leak | Tactus
Real or not — The shiny plastic brings the old “Samsung Imitates Apple Imitates Samsung”-saying to life.
So says Rene Ritchie of iMore, who tends to be very accurate when it comes to such information.
And continuing on the Marco Arment front, he’s also predicting that Apple will indeed do a 5-inch iPhone (well, technically a 4.94-inch one):
An iPhone Plus almost as big as a Galaxy Note isn’t ideal for many people, but it doesn’t need to be quite that large to accommodate a 4.94” screen. It’s clear that other manufacturers have found designs and techniques to make larger-screened phones require smaller bezels. Apple could achieve similar results and shrink the “forehead” and “chin” even further, limited primarily by the size of the Home button and the desire to keep the forehead and chin equal height.
A 4.94”-screened iPhone doesn’t sound too ridiculous these days.
Arment’s other mockups are compelling arguments by themselves. I buy the argument, even if I’m not sure I’d buy one.
Jeremy Horwitz of iLounge says he has more info about the “cheap” iPhone:
In summary, the budget iPhone will look a lot like an iPhone 5 from the front, an iPod classic from the side, and an iPod touch 5G on the bottom—only made from plastic rather than glass or metal. It won’t make any bold departures from past Apple designs, but then, it’s supposed to be an inexpensive iPhone, and achieves that goal pretty much as expected.
If true, it’s interesting that Apple isn’t skimping on the screen, but rather the body (and undoubtedly some other internals as well).
The new phone—one of its code names is N97—would be available to carriers at about half the price of the main iPhones. That would allow carriers to subsidize most or all of the retail price, putting the iPhone in the same mass-market price range as rival smartphones, the person said.
Big day #2: iPhone 5 and new iPods from Apple
iPhone 5: 7.6 mm thin, 8MP camera, A6 chip, 4” inch screen, LTE
iPod Nano: 5.4 mm thin, 2.5” multitouch screen, Bluetooth, physical controls. 16GB for $149
iPod Touch: 6.1 mm thin, 5MP camera, A5 chip, 4” screen, AirPlay mirroring, 32GB for $299 (ouch).
EarPods: New earphones, available as a standalone accessory, available today. Hope they’re much better than today’s earbuds.
I really like the formfactor of the new iPod Touch. It’s so thin it almost looks like a fake render dreamt up by a rumor site. The design also clearly shows that the Touch is closer to the iPad in the iOS family tree than the iPhone is. However, at $299, I think I’ll pass for now.
And there it is, see you in a year, when it’s time for the next, next iPhone.
Clever sleuths have discovered that if you search for “iphone-5” on Apple’s website, the url “http://www.apple.com/iphone/iphone-5/tips” appears in the search results. Of course, that website isn’t live yet, but the same thing happened last year, when hours before Apple introduced the iPhone…
iPhone 5 will support some LTE networks globally, WSJ says
Globetrotting 4G
Leaked iPhone 5 booting up?
This is either an unprecedented breakdown in Apple’s security, an unprecedented quality of fakery, or… something else.
