14 DAY TRIAL // The design of Apple’s next-generation iPhone is all but confirmed, with repair shop iResQ assembling yet another batch of parts with great success. Not all the components are there (far from it), but everything they’ve been able to get their mitts on fits.
After previously releasing images of iPhone 5 parts, iResQ is now back with a more detailed look at the components making up Apple’s next-generation smartphone.
The company released new images this week, accompanied by a short blog post, saying, “We have continued to assemble some ‘iPhone 5’ parts as they trickle in. So far what we have appears to all fit together.”
They still bothered to describe the hardware, even though pretty much every media outlet has documented these parts ten times over.
For example, Apple is clearly going with a unibody chassis in the next-generation iPhone, though not all of the enclosure is machined from aluminum.
According to various leaks in the past couple of months, Apple is placing two radio-transparent windows at the top and bottom sides of the metal case, in order to allow the cellular and Wi-Fi antennas to do their thing. NFC is not likely to be a part of this year’s refresh, hardware experts say.
The all-metal enclosure indicates that Apple will wait at least another year to leverage the hundreds of millions of iTunes accounts with credit cards on file.
However, iResQ does have some new details to share. For instance, the vibrate motor can be seen installed in the top left corner of the semi-assembled unit.
“We aren’t sure if this is installed correctly or not, as it was aligned vertically in the iPhone 4 and 4S models. The motor does seem to fit and makes full contact in this configuration,” says iResQ.
“You will notice we have also added the volume buttons, vibrate/silent switch, and of course the accompanying ribbon cables. We have also added the iPhone 5 camera in the upper right corner, but again we are unsure if this is the correct placement,” says the repair shop.
The SIM card tray is also shown.
