Matt Rammelkamp's Blog

Personal blog of Matthew Rammelkamp from 2005 - 2009. Blog is now changing sites to www.MatthewThomas.tv

Sunday, September 02, 2012

Hands-on impressions of iPhone 5 dummy unit

Hands-on impressions of the near-final iPhone 5 assembly

Today at an undisclosed location in Berlin, Germany, Mobile Nations' own Alex Dobie and Richard Devine got some hands-on time with a dummy unit for Apple's next iPhone (iPhone 5,1). Dummies are mock-ups put together by accessory manufacturers to test product on in advance of actual hardware. Basically, they want to be ready to launch with the new iPhone, but they're left as much in the dark as anyone else outside of Apple. So, based on rumors, leaks, connections, etc. they build these dummies, which may be dead-on accurate, or dead-wrong. They confirm nothing more or less than a case-maker trusts them enough to build product based on them (which some did last year, and got it wrong to the tune of $10,000 in loses).

With all that in mind, here's their report:

While the unit we saw was non-functional, if this dummy is indeed accurate to the release hardware, it repeats several aspects of the product's design that have previously been reported based on parts and other leaks.

The iPhone 5 dummy is approximately as wide as the current 4S, only taller, and sporting a widescreen display. There's a smaller home button underneath. The fake front on the Home screen sports five rows of icons on account of the extra real estate. As iMore reported earlier, there's a new, smaller Dock connector down below, in addition to a 3.5mm headphone jack. The bottom face of the design is peppered with a large speaker grille, alongside those other components. Around the back, there's a brushed metal rear panel decorated with a shiny Apple logo.

Essentially, again, it looks like every leak we've seen over the past several months. The pictures we've seen from factory leaks and other sources are an almost exact match for the dummy device we saw today.

While nothing with Apple is ever truly final until it's held up on stage, if this dummy is based on accurate information, does indeed look like we're in for a widescreen iPhone with a new dock connector and a redesigned chassis in just a few weeks.

As iMore first reported, we're expecting a Sept. 12 announcement and a launch in the first wave of countries by September 21, with the second wave to follow on or about October 5.

Update: Tons more on these dummies, and how widely they're available, in our previous post

Image: GSM Israel News



Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/gZydBCiELnU/story01.htm

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