We are now well and truly into the realms of peak iPhone rumor time and today we saw something that reaffirms old rumors and a similar leak while putting it into something we can all understand – picture form.
Today, Australian leakster Sonny Dickson tweeted out an image of what appears to be a technical drawing for an aluminum iPhone 8 prototype (could it instead be an iPhone 7s prototype?) that shows vertically aligned dual cameras and a fingerprint sensor on the backside.
This Design Verification Testing prototype could be Apple’s fallback model in case they fail to embed an optical fingerprint reader in the display, as has been rumored. But what if the hole under the Apple logo on the backside is for wireless charging, not the fingerprint sensor?
Bloomberg’s people familiar with the matter detailed at least three different iPhone prototypes that Apple is thought to have tested with manufacturing partners in Asia:
- Prototype #1: Flat OLED screen and the cover glass that curves into a steel frame. Design conceptually similar to iPhone 4 with symmetrical, slightly curved glass on the front/back and the curves similar in shape to those on the front of iPhone 7. “An earlier prototype design had a thinner steel band, leaving more noticeable curved glass on the sides,“ reads the article.
- Prototype #2: The same slightly curved front and steel frame like Prototype #1 with a glass back having “more dramatic curves†on the top and bottom akin to the original iPhone design from 2007.
- Prototype #3: Basically a tweaked Prototype #2, only slightly larger, with a simpler design with an aluminum back rather than a glass one. This is Apple’s fallback device because suppliers have so far “struggled to reliably produce heavily curved glass in mass quantities.â€
Thoughts?
