14 DAY TRIAL // The White iPhone 4 has undergone a different manufacturing process, resulting in a bulkier body, and a more visible proximity sensor, early adopters have found.
One of the first to discover discrepancies between the black and white versions of the iPhone 4, a MacRumors reader emailed the rumor site, saying:
“Just picked up the white iPhone 4 and realized it doesn’t fit into my Incase slider case. It appears that Apple has increased the size of the plastic that borders the glass on both sides by about 1mm.”
Ryan Cash of Marketcircle, a company offering Enterprise and business software solutions, also discovered the difference.
Unlike the first discoverer, Cash noticed the discrepancies simply by holding the device in his hand:
“A colleague of mine just picked up a 16 GB iPhone 4 in white. I was a bit surprised when I picked it up off his desk (I had my black 32 GB in my other hand at the same time) – it immediately felt thicker. We placed them side-by-side on his desk, and sure enough, the white iPhone was a hair thicker.”
A hair thicker indeed, as other reports claim the difference is a minuscule 2 microns, or 0.2 millimeters.
"It's not as simple as making something white," said Apple’s Philip Schiller in an interview with All Things D this week.
"There's a lot more that goes into both the material science of it--how it holds up over time...but also in how it all works with the sensors," Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller told All Things Digital.
Schiller also said the white iPhone has extra protection against UV.
A CNET report covering the launch of the white iPhone 4 also reveals that the handset sports a clearly noticeable different version of the proximity sensor.
The sensor sits just above the top speaker grille. On the black version, it’s almost invisible to the naked eye.
