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Leaked: Curvy, buttonless iPhone prototype (that probably isn’t real)

Curved iPhone PrototypeYou don’t get much more juicy than an iPhone rumor accompanied by photos which aren’t all that blurry, making this a rumor more juicy than an orange grove after a particularly excellent season. However, don’t get your hopes up too high, as there’s every chance the phone is nothing more than a clever fake.

The images you see here were sent to GSMArena, and supposedly show a future, or prototype Apple iPhone. It’s not like any iPhone you’ve seen before though, as gone are the flat sides and the Home button, replaced by a curvy design and a completely buttonless front panel.

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A close look reveals iPhone 5-like speaker grilles either side of a Lightning connector on the base of the device, and a shiny, presumably glass section at the top. The entirely black front panel looks bizarre, and it’s impossible to see if the device has a screen at all, let alone the size of the bezel surrounding it. The shape of the phone is highly reminiscent of the fifth-generation iPod Nano, just on a larger scale, right down to the placement of the 3.5mm headphone socket on the bottom corner.

Apple patent wrap around displayWhat makes these photos more notable than usual, is their similarity to a recently revealed Apple patent, which showed a phone with essentially the same shape and no Home button. Of course, the photo could be a render inspired by the patent, rather than an official prototype, but the timing is certainly coincidental.

So, what are the chances of this being a real iPhone and not a fake? To be honest, they’re not good, as GSMArena notes even the source from which it obtained the images, “couldn’t swear by their authenticity.” All this means it’s best to treat these images as a fan-made attempt to bring Apple’s patent to life, rather than the first picture of a radically redesigned Apple iPhone we’ll see introduced in the future. It’ll be interesting if it turns out to be the other way around though.

Andy Boxall
Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…
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