“New pictures claim to show a redesigned stainless steel frame for the iPhone, with new placement of black bands on the perimeter of the handset’s frame, the metal band which also acts as the phone’s antenna,” AppleInsider reports.
“The photos from SmartPhone Medic claim to be from a ‘very reliable source’ and purport to show an ‘unreleased iPhone design,'” AppleInsider reports. “The alleged new frame is pictured next to the existing one used in the current iPhone 4.”
AppleInsider reports, “The alleged new part has a few key differences found in the placement of ‘antenna gaps.’ The current iPhone 4 has three gaps — two on the side, one on top — while the pictured part shows four — two on each side, none on top.”
More info and photos in the full article here.
I call BULLSHIT! It’s a new frame for the iPhone, NOT a verizon phone.
It’s probably a great photoshop job.
When does new frame mean Verizon iPhone? It still was the sim card slot so you can only assume it is for the next iPhone using the GSM network.
I agree. Looks like a general iPhone design mod. Obviously Apple will have been looking for ways to improve the antenna. This looks like the fruit of those labors.
Liquid metal?
MW: truth
Guess what … the Verizon phone for the LTE system (4G ha! yah right!) WILL have a sim card because LTE and all 4G cell communication will be based on GSM tech specs … Verizon is just adapting CDMA tech to work over the GSM transmissions …
or this could be an early iPhone 4 prototype chassis that was just released?
or more BS?
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Regardless, all the design shows is one extra gap (perhaps) and no change in the incredible FUD gap issue – the side gaps are the same and have an extra.
If that design is for any new iPhone, people buying accessories are going to have a frustrating time. Look at the volume buttons and mute switch placement. Moved just enough to make most current cases useless. But who’s gonna figure that out before buying a new case?
Whatever.
Put it in an OtterBox case and go with it!!!
This would be a tacit admission that the iPhone 4’s antenna design was indeed flawed. The aim is to prevent the vaunted “death grip.” No longer could a person cover up that top gap of the antenna with an index finger while touching the others. Instead, with the way I hold my iPhone, there would always be at least two gaps uncovered when using this model.
That should have been the design from the very beginning. Verizon iPhone or not, no longer can any of you deny that the iPhone 4 antenna was a poor showing on Apple’s behalf after the redesign is confirmed.
@Steve516
This design might fix the attenagate issue by placing cellular antenna’s on both the left and right side equally, removing any discrimination to left-handed people. The top band, wifi. The bottom band, bluetooth. Just a thought.
You’re holding it wrong, updated. This is very amusing.
A person with any common sense at all would have put their relatively expensive iPhone in a nice, rugged, rubberized case (such as the Otterbox Defender) that would lessen damage from dropping and also lessen reception problems.
Assuming the photo is genuine (a big assumption), I also think it’s a possible solution to the “death grip” (or, more accurately, the “fingertip bridge” issue). However, notwithstanding the suggestions above, I can’t quite figure out from the photos how it would solve the problem.
…”If that design is for any new iPhone, people buying accessories are going to have a frustrating time. Look at the volume buttons and mute switch placement. Moved just enough to make most current cases useless.”
If you buy an iPhone 4, why would you ever buy a case for iPhone 3GS?? Consequently, when someone buys iPhone 5 (once it is released), they’d be foolish to buy a $20 case for iPhone 4 and hope it works.
In other words, you get a phone, then look for a case for that phone. I have yet to see a case for any phone (even those sold in the streets of big cities) that doesn’t specifically say exactly which model(s) it is designed for. Can’t see much frustration here.
It makes sense – holding it normally would mean there is an antenna strip on the top that is free of human contact, so depending on which of the radio/wireless functions is placed there it would improve that reception.
@R2
Why do you have to be such a tool? ALL cellphones have attenuation issues when held. PERIOD Are there varying degrees of attenuation, sure. Poor Showing? NOT!
Tactic Admission of a failed design? Are you smoking crack again? Try – Improved design, or revised form factor. I’d call it a minor tweak.
The MILLIONS and MILLIONS of users STILL buying them? Why would they buy such an obviously flawed product? Because it’s NBD..
thats funny about all these death grip comments. Wasn’t the “death grip of the iPhone 4 at the base of the of the phone where those two indentions still are? New case doesn’t mean Verizon, who ever published this article still thinks like an android lover, new case new carrier new everything.
It’s a photoshop finish. till you see a Vietnamese guy holding it or Gizmodo payed for more pics, don’t believe the hype. And I believe engadget got first dibs cuz they published the fool hold it for ransom in a picture.
But hey we’ll see, just about everyone has been wrong when it comes down to predicting Apple now a days.
@hmm…
Blocking the lower gaps is only a part of it. To create the death grip, one must then place an index finger on the upper gap between the headphone jack and power button. There are many people such as myself who do just that, and that’s what kills or drastically degrades the signal.
In fact, here’s a picture demonstrating almost exactly how I hold it.
With this purported redesign, my fingers wouldn’t touch the top two gaps along the upper corners on either side of the case. So no death grip.
R2
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Who does your nails…?
“Opinion Mr. Spock.”
“Fascinating.”
“Explain.”
“I can’t. Insufficient data.”
“Hypothesize.”
“It would seem…”
@R2
Or perhaps they’re adding a NEW ANTENNA, not fixing an issue, which, BTW, only exists in the US.
If you now count the slices, there are four—or three, since I believe two of them are link together at the inside.
I don’t know about you (all) but even this far I still don’t think Apple is adding an old CDMA chip to the iPhone since it’s already dead, instead the could add a LTE (pre-4G) chip to the phone.
In Mexico (I live here) the sole CDMA carrier started earlier this year rolling out its GSM/UMTS network in order to support the iPhone—only. Now you can buy it subsidized in all the carriers and unlocked at Apple.
If Apple were to add an LTE chip to the phone, I hope they market it the same, iPhone 4, with support for LTE networks or whatever, since LTE is not 4G, however LTE Advanced is 4G.
@R2
I had an iPhone 4. In fact I had 3 of them. I live in a weak signal area and could kill a call just by placing a SINGLE finger over the lower left gap. You don’t need to also be touching any other part of the phone. I tested this 6 ways from Sunday before returning all my phones and going back to my 3GSs.
It does seem that if this infamous gap were relocated to the top, or anywhere that you’re very unlikely to touch, that it should put an end once and for all to the antenna problem. (A case is out of the question, for me anyway.)
@ djp
Next time you should watch the video before you call bullshit… Didn’t know you could photoshop a video
I have the iPhone 4 and yes the antenna design is flawed. I gave my case to my wife for a few weeks and used mine naked. I could without a doubt kill the signal holding it in a death grip, which is my normal grip while surfing the net. So, I would be highly surprised if Apple didn’t redesign the antenna. There’s a video floating around on youtube comparing the iPhone 4 to it. It looks legit.
@ MacTonight
I agree that the video adds a distinct odour of credibility to this leak. If it’s all a hoax, somebody has gone to incredible lengths to construct a fake.
Of course, it’s always possible that this is a sidelined prototype, but I doubt it. I guess that if Apple demands removal of the video and photos, we’ll have a better idea of their authenticity.
I still can’t figure out how the external bands will fix the “fingertip bridge” issue, but maybe the extra internal band is part of it, as the video suggests.
@R2: ok, I admit it. Who gives a shit besides Apple haters like you?
NOBODY.