Skip to main content

Purported iPhone 6 pictures show protruding camera, rounded edges

iphone-6-03

Images posted on Weibo claim to show an iPhone 6 under testing at Foxconn, via GforGames. The validity of these images cannot be confirmed, but the shots do line up with previous rumours. The iPhone 6 depicted here has a protruding camera (similar to the current design of the iPod touch), rounded edges and a considerably thinner profile than the current iPhone 5s.

Supposedly, these photos come from inside Foxconn itself. Drawings published on Friday reflect these images somewhat. A protruding camera component is part of the schematics, for example. Evidence of a thin chassis for the next-generation iPhone were originally found in January, albeit those pictures were as sketchy as these latest images.

5335227d83947

Fake or not, the rumor mill is definitely converging on an iPhone design that melds together the aesthetics of the iPad mini and the current iPhone 5s with a screen much larger than the current lineup, with screen sizes expected in the 4.7inch and 5.5inch range as reported many times before.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Comments

  1. ftistratcommau - 10 years ago

    On a PC? Fake.

    • Michael Perry - 10 years ago

      Most manufacturing plants including Foxconn run on PC’s. Matter fact I can’t think of a manufacturing plant that doesn’t run on PC…

      • True. Although slowly but surely the engineering software is on it’s way to the Mac. In another five years or so all the big ones should be or should be close.

    • jrox16 - 10 years ago

      That’s supposedly a PC at the Foxconn factory, which has no reason to use a Mac and would most likely buy the cheapest PCs up to the task to save costs. Being a PC and not a Mac is irrelevant.

      But I’d bet it’s fake because I have an extremely hard time believing Apple (Jony Ive) would have a protruding camera on the iPhone. No way. Either that’s some kind of camera lens cover that appears to protrude, or this is fake.

      • Laslo Munich - 10 years ago

        Doesn’t have much to do with the “cheapest”. It just so happens that still, the majority of meaningful business applications are written for Windows. Not anti-Apple, just stating a fact. It’s a huge industry for software. Of course, more and more of it will be multi-platform year by year – but real change, where process control and process matters takes a considerable amount of time. Manufacturers don’t go “ohhh lookie a new version of the software running my billion dollar assembly plant is in iTunes, let’s get it!” Typically there is integration with their processes – new software might go down once per decade… maybe… possibly… but probably not.

  2. alexfirth - 10 years ago

    I hope the camera doesn’t protrude out of the chassis. It’s the only thing I don’t like about the iPod Touch. I’m sure Apple’s engineers will solve the problem.

    • PMZanetti - 10 years ago

      Considering the first thing I’ll do is put the iPhone in an Apple-brand leather case, there is no way I would ever notice it. Sounds like an acceptable tradeoff to me.

  3. John Eric Moran - 10 years ago

    Nothing like metal and plastic together……

    Come on. Do something “NEW”

    • Scott Broughton - 10 years ago

      What do you suggest? Paper? Wood? Cardboard? Metal, glass and plastic are just what phones are made of

      • Laslo Munich - 10 years ago

        DIAMONDS! They should be cheaper than glass. Maybe Apple can make that happen.

    • o0smoothies0o - 10 years ago

      Hahahah yeah I say they use rubber!! It would be genius!!!! Oh wait.

    • Tallest Skil - 10 years ago

      Shut up and go away.

      • silas681 - 10 years ago

        Tool

      • Tallest Skil - 10 years ago

        Thanks for admitting you’re a tool of anti-Apple propaganda.

      • Please go stand in front of a mirror and repeat this.

      • Tallest Skil - 10 years ago

        How about you open your eyes instead?

    • taoprophet420 - 10 years ago

      What is plastic? on iPhone 5 and 5s the too and bottom piece is glass on the darker version and ceramic on the white models.

    • Clint (@ClintAustin26) - 10 years ago

      what do you want? Carbon fiber? Actually that’d be pretty cool, but it’d be interesting if they’d do something with liquid metal.

      • Laslo Munich - 10 years ago

        Carbon fiber would be awesome… probably not too far off either. I wonder if it’s too rigid, or perhaps doesn’t disperse heat effectively? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

  4. I’m not sure how I feel about a protruding camera…

    • PMZanetti - 10 years ago

      You’ll never even know its there. Its not like it sticks out substantially. If you’ve seen the iPouch touch, it protrudes about 1 mm.

      • o0smoothies0o - 10 years ago

        Yeah and the fact that anyone who says that probably uses a case. No matter what case you use, it won’t protrude the case.

      • Alex (@Metascover) - 10 years ago

        1 mm too much. And I don’t use cases. Cases are stupid.

      • Clint (@ClintAustin26) - 10 years ago

        It’s not like it’s a huge bulge like on all the Android phones.

    • Laslo Munich - 10 years ago

      you’d probably feel about a quarter inch.

  5. Claude-Michael Comeau - 10 years ago

    Is that all aluminum?

    • Almost. It seems like the glass windows of the 5/5s have been replaced by aluminum windows, but there are still plastic gaps for the signal to go through. This is similar to what the HTC One is doing to prevent a Faraday cage. I don’t think it would have been technically feasible to have a 100% metal back.

      • taoprophet420 - 10 years ago

        Could those pieces be liquid metal for better reception?

      • deeplyaware - 10 years ago

        Those pieces could be just protective strips of material, just like on top of the Apple logo :) These photos look legit, and they are not a surprise at all, since the ipad mini came out. They will all look like the ipad mini in one way or another. All we need is come chamfered edges on the laptops, and I think we’re all covered.

  6. natesf (@natesf) - 10 years ago

    The idea of a protruding camera on the iPhone is just just just just so horrible that I can’t even think of it for now. I can’t even begin to fathom what forces at Apple would get them to that design endpoint. It’s smacks of a desire to obtain one goal (ever thinner) at the sacrifice of something else. What this also means is that we must now wait for the iPhone 8 to allow time for camera sensor technology to catch up to fit in such a small package. We have seen this play out in their products / engineer approach before. Such as the desire to put a retina display into the iPad 3 — which made it heavier than a boat anchor. It then took several years before the iPad Air solved that problem. If true, this is a setup for that same scenario!

    • Yes (@AMillah) - 10 years ago

      The iPod Touch camera protrude is barely noticeable. Not a big deal at all. The only thing I don’t like about it, is they could have made it thick enough to cover the camera and use that space for a bigger battery. But as we know Apple, they like to make battery life improvements through more efficient chip design and software, not by stuffing a larger battery inside. So this is Apple pretty much being Apple.

      Also, “heavier than a boat anchor?” More like, still lighter than the first gen iPad. It seemed like a worthwhile tradeoff to me. Retina display provided far more utility than the iPad 2’s lighter weight provided to me.

      • unitedelectronicsgroup - 10 years ago

        Apple engineers and designers are intelligent enough to avoid anything that protrudes, because that is just a recipe for disaster, i.e., the camera will just break, being exposed. All things considered, the purported design is just somewhere still in its development stages.

      • i agree with ya. but the iPad 3 was only .04 of pound lighter at 1.46 lbs vs the original iPad’s 1.50 lbs

    • o0smoothies0o - 10 years ago

      Do you use a case? If your answer is yes, then I suggest you rethink everything you said. Guess what will protrude your case? Nothing.

      • smigit - 10 years ago

        …and if the answer is no?

      • Alex (@Metascover) - 10 years ago

        If you need to cover your iPhone with a case, better buy an android phone.

      • Clint (@ClintAustin26) - 10 years ago

        There’s nothing wrong with wanting to protect your phone from dings and scratches. Just because you don’t doesn’t mean others should get an Android if they do.

    • taoprophet420 - 10 years ago

      Maybe they will have attachable lenses so the protrusion would have a trade off. I wouldn’t mind a profusion if I could easily attach different lenses.

  7. ttss6 - 10 years ago

    The one thing I hated about the iTouch 5G’s design is the protruding camera. That’s the reason why they added the cheesy wrist strap so that the protruding camera wouldn’t stick out as much. Unless they can make the camera thinner, they should have it be flush with the rest of the phone and use the slightly thicker design to add some more battery so the iPhone 6 can get closer to having all day battery life comparable to the current gen MacBook Air.

    • jrox16 - 10 years ago

      I get two days out of my iPhone 5s… people you are really staring at your phones too much lol. = p

    • PMZanetti - 10 years ago

      I’d prefer a thinner phone over a flush camera, since there is no imaginable circumstance in which ill notice the camera protruding at all.

      • rettun1 - 10 years ago

        How about if the phone is on a table screen up? And you’re tap tap tapping on the screen and the phone wobbles on the desk. Seems pretty imaginable

      • @rettun1 – agree; do this all the time. like right now. Oh well. Maybe like that other rumor suggested, the smaller screened version will have a flush camera. That’s the one I’d take anyway.

      • rettun1 - 10 years ago

        Same here. I’m not quite ready to jump to a 5.5 from 4 inches

  8. mcp345 - 10 years ago

    Funny to see that this is inside Foxconn and they’re using windows, because didn’t Steve go absolutely nuts when someone who he was working with came in with a windows pc?? And besides that, weren’t all the computers in the NEXT factory all NEXT pc’s? Anyone who can verify?

  9. iMacheads - 10 years ago

    Reblogged this on iMacheads.

  10. PMZanetti - 10 years ago

    Looks like the real deal to me.

  11. Paul Snow - 10 years ago

    If all you can get is a photo of a screen showing a photo of the rumored iPhone 6…
    I don’t know how I feel about the protruding camera, but it is weird because there’s a white line around the upper and lower parts of the case, perhaps they’re going to add crystal in these parts.

    • Michael Napier (@NapMan) - 10 years ago

      Maybe the reason they do it this way is in case there is any metadata in the original photo that could potentially link back to the person who took it.

  12. Yes (@AMillah) - 10 years ago

    So it looks like the frame is entirely metal, yet there are still outlines around where the glass windows would be on the iPhone 5. Perhaps they’ve used liquid metal to inject into these areas where glass would have been on the iPhone 5, to make it appear as if it is a single piece aluminum unibody.

    That would be awesome. They don’t quite have the ability to create entire iPhones with liquid metal, but this seems like the next best thing.

    • o0smoothies0o - 10 years ago

      That’s a good idea actually.

    • Benjamin Mayo - 10 years ago

      Not sure whether this is actually possible, but it sounds awesome.

      • Technically possible, but we have no evidence that LiquidMetal is radio-transparent. If it’s not, then that would turn your iPhone into an iPod touch.

      • “but we have no evidence that LiquidMetal is radio-transparent”

        Yeah we do. It always has been. It’s been one of its most-promoted features, so not sure how you missed that.

  13. Chris Murphy - 10 years ago

    Forget the protruding camera, what is up with that huge plastic gap around the edges?

    • o0smoothies0o - 10 years ago

      You mean tape? Lol…

      • Chris Murphy - 10 years ago

        Is that what it is? Kinda hard to tell.

      • Doesn’t appear to be tape as it extends to the sides of the phone and doesn’t seem to hold anything into place. It appears to be part of the antenna design. You can see those same gaps on the 3D model leaked by Nowhereelse.fr.

  14. MaRico NoHands Spikes - 10 years ago

    You are a fool to think this will be the final model of the next iPhone, its prototype season along with some fakes

  15. rogifan - 10 years ago

    Where is the true tone flash? Why would Apple abandon it after only a year? Perhaps this is a new iPod touch?

    • o0smoothies0o - 10 years ago

      Read the word on the back of the device. Unless this is the special iPhone iPod then I don’t think so.

  16. a420turbo - 10 years ago

    In the picture with the schematic of the lightning connector we are looking at the 5.5″ screen. The connector in that picture is roughly half the width of the actual connector on the 5/5S (99.9% chance they stay the same from 5/5S) … The width of that iphone is 2.75″ so it can’t be the 4.7 unless Apple makes its iPhone shorter 99% not happening. So in that picture the iphone is roughly 2.75 x 4.75.

  17. nunyabines - 10 years ago

    There making the phone too tall. It’s going to end up sticking half out my pocket rather than making the entire screen bigger which is what people want. Not just a taller screen. Don’t believe this is real.

  18. Alex (@Metascover) - 10 years ago

    So it’s apparently as thin as the ‘central part’ of the iPhone 5S (when removing the cut bezels part).
    Camera that comes out isn’t very nice.

  19. Andi Lindner - 10 years ago

    According to a post over at Patently Apple a magnetic protruding lens could make great sense http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2014/01/apple-patent-reveals-magnetic-add-on-camera-lenses-for-idevices.html

  20. Inaba-kun (@Inaba_kun) - 10 years ago

    I’d much sooner see an iPhone that wasn’t thin for the sake of mere aesthetics. Battery life is far more important.

  21. CJ Sheets - 10 years ago

    Would you rather have a thinner iPhone with a protruding camera or a slightly thicker iPhone with a larger battery and flush camera? Personally I’d take the thicker/larger battery any day. This manufacturer obsession with producing the thinnest phone is sacrificing battery life at the same time. And what for, to say “thinnest iPhone ever” in the marketing bullet points?

    • rettun1 - 10 years ago

      The weight of the phone also matters to people (I like a small, light phone), though I do agree that battery trumps most features for most people

  22. Would like to see a close up of that schematics where the actual dimensions are listed.

  23. Mr. Grey (@mister_grey) - 10 years ago

    The schematics that show the 5.5″ phone are actually the very first concrete-(ish) indications that the thing is even real. Everything previous has indicated that they are only making the 4.7″ one. Therefore, I am going to go with the probability that the schematics are bogus given that a 5.5″ iPhone as well as releasing two iPhone sizes at once, makes no f*cking sense at all.

    • taoprophet420 - 10 years ago

      Bigger model with attachable lenses makes sense. Two sizes make sense because people are preceding larger models. I never use my iPhone one handed unless talking on it so a bigger size wouldn’t give me more information on the screen and keep the ease if use.

  24. Chris Denny (@dennyc69) - 10 years ago

    If Apple can make a phone half the size of the 5 and 5S, I would just love it. If the sizes stated are true, I really think Samsung and other handset makers will be scrambling to do whatever they can to discredit it, make fun of it, and make a phone that looks like it.The demand will be crazy!

    • offthedial - 10 years ago

      Samsung is going to do everything they can to discredit it no matter what Apple releases in the next iPhone, because that’s what Samsung does.

  25. Jason Frost - 10 years ago

    I also hope it doesn’t have a protruding camera either.

  26. Ugh. not a big fan of the protruding camera design. I like using my phone flat on my desk. Oh well. It’ll be years before I upgrade from my 5 anyway. It’ll be flat again by the time the 7 rolls around.

  27. Jeff Mitchell - 10 years ago

    I find it hilarious that the most advanced iPhone yet is being designed on a workstation that is apparently running Windows XP.

    :)

    • rettun1 - 10 years ago

      I don’t think the Foxconn workers do too much of the designing

    • standardpull - 10 years ago

      Anyone in manufacturing knows that all those purchased machine tools use software that is decades old. Heck, we have equipment in our shop that is still paper tape driven. If it works, and if it costs $30 million dollars to replace, you don’t just upgrade it because it uses older tech.

  28. They’re developing using Windows XP? Come on. There’s no way.

  29. Kevweb (@kweb75) - 10 years ago

    As long as it has a much bigger screen, I will be happy. I am tired of having Android screen size envy.

  30. Andreas Kührmann - 10 years ago

    The device in picture ‘iphone-6-02’ is not an iPhone it’s an iPod touch. The bottom side looks the same as the current iPod. The iPhone has a second grill next to the headphone jack the iPod touch doesn’t.

  31. standardpull - 10 years ago

    There is absolutely no reason to believe that these are images of a real Apple design.

  32. Pravin Bhana - 10 years ago

    I’m all for a bigger iPhone even two sizes. But the design if it looked like the iPad Mini, with Retina Display and a new IOS 8 will be a winner, in my books!

  33. Salman M - 10 years ago

    the silver color and the white lines remind me of HTC One.

  34. tobicom - 10 years ago

    Hope Apple is bringing a new Design, iPhone 5 Design is nice but need someting new!

  35. Josh Hicks - 10 years ago

    I think this is the real deal! As for the protruding camera, just remember how a patent was spotted for what looked like a lens mounting system for the new model

  36. Where is the speaker on the bottom of the iPhone? I think it’s fake

Author

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Benjamin Mayo

Benjamin develops iOS apps professionally and covers Apple news and rumors for 9to5Mac. Listen to Benjamin, every week, on the Happy Hour podcast. Check out his personal blog. Message Benjamin over email or Twitter.