Sam Oliver
A video showing what appears to be an engineering sample of a rear casing for Apple's next-generation, 5.5-inch "iPhone 6" surfaced earlier this week from Japan, showing a rounded unibody design and a two-part Apple logo.
The casing, published by Japanese blog Mac Otakara, largely matches up with previous leaks and rumors. A rounded flash and microphone hole flank the rear-mounted camera, and the sides move away from the iPhone 5's flat layout to a more rounded form factor.
The interior sports a number of attachment points and screw holes, as well as plastic fixtures near the top and bottom. Additionally, the Apple logo found on the upper part of the back panel is cut out, suggesting Apple may use the location as an antenna window as the company does with the iPad.
It is worth noting that Mac Otakara makes no mention of the provenance of the new part. It was first seen alongside a number of other mockup iPhone 6 units purchased from Chinese marketplace AliExpress, suggesting that it may simply be a speculative part produced by a third-party seller.
No matter its final industrial design, the iPhone 6 is widely expected to come in two versions — one with a 4.7-inch display and a larger, 5.5-inch "phablet." Other features rumored to be in the offing are a new, 128-gigabyte capacity variant, optical image stabilization, and a faster "A8" CPU.
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30 Comments
If that's the 5.5 inch, then that guy's hands must be huge - It doesn't look that much bigger than my 5S does in my hands...
At first I thought the 4.7 was the right size, but if the 5.5 is getting better technology perhaps that is the one I will end up with.
It’s blatantly the 4.7”. Look at the scale compared to my incredibly sophisticated mockup. Hand height: 7.75” span: 9.25”. Tried to match the position.
I worked out the math for the proper screen size and shape here, so anyone want to work the math on how big this guy’s hands would have to be for that to be a 5.5”?
If that's the 5.5 inch, then that guy's hands must be huge - It doesn't look that much bigger than my 5S does in my hands...
The picture in the story is of him holding the 4.7" model. Look at the video where he picks up the 5.5" one, the camera never shows an angle or view close to that screenshot. I didn't need to make a cardboard cut out to figure that out either.
It is pretty clear now that the 5.5" is real, will be released at the same time and not months later, and will be an iPhone and not and iPod as some have ludicrously posited.
Thanks gwmac... I hadn't watched the video before. Pretty obvious really!