Form is a fundamental design hurdle when creating a new product. Designers of touchscreen phones had to get creative in order to try and differentiate their monolithic black slabs from each others, when the focus shifted from feature to smartphone. Apple was one company who have found their image and stuck to it rigidly.
Function has followed form with the hard-edged design of the iPhone 4 and 4S needed to accommodate more components, but a new video picked up by CydiaBlog has now emerged, supposedly showing the new iPhone 5 back panel, which outlines the next step in the function-led design evolution of Apple’s smartphone.
As the host, from eTradeSupply explains, there are numerous differences in both the structure and the design layout of this new back panel. First and foremost, if this is a genuine iPhone 5 part, our suspicions of a unibody design appear on the money. As demonstrated, the iPhone 4 back panel slots out of a frame that makes up the aerial structure, whereas the 5’s back plate is a unified piece which the components would then slot into, not unlike an HTC Sensation’s structure.
The height is an obvious difference with the same width feeding into the likelihood of a 16:9 4-inch 1136×640 display. The drilled slots and port spaces confirm what we’ve seen previously in leaked imagery and schematics, the dock connector is smaller, the headphone jack has switched from top to bottom and most notably the SIM slot doesn’t fit neatly into the iPhone 4 body. This could either mean a simple SIM tray redesign or a more invasive introduction of Apple’s nanoSIM.
Many are hoping to see the iPhone 5 emerge at WWDC and with parts floating around, it may be a sign that it is in fact ready. We’ll know on Monday.
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