Budget iPhone Will Be a Cross Between the iPhone 5, iPod Touch, iPod Classic?

A new detailed report from iLounge reveals that Apple's budget iPhone will be a cross between the iPhone 5, iPod touch, and iPod classic.

The phone is said to be .5mm taller and wider and 1mm thicker than the iPhone 5. It will feature a mainly plastic chassis as rumored and look almost identical to the iPhone 5 from the front. It's screen resolution will remain 1136x640 and likely use Gorilla Glass.

When turned on its side the volume buttons will be elongated similar to the iPod touch; rather than circular like the iPhone.

Apple’s budget housing looks closest to the iPod classic in shape, though not in materials. Unlike the plastic iPhone 3G/3GS, which featured soft curves on all sides, the budget iPhone’s curves start and end at flat surfaces, so each side and the back are flat. This seems like a trivial change, until you realize that it allows Apple to use flat rather than curve-matched parts: the right side has a flat, centered SIM card tray just like the iPhone 5’s, while all of the buttons and ports are on flat rather than curved surfaces. A flat-backed iPhone won’t rock on a flat surface when it vibrates, either.

The back features a camera, microphone, and rear flash but without a protruding lens. The microphone is circular instead of pill-shaped.

The bottom is a hybrid of the iPhone 5 and iPod touch 5G. A headphone port, Lightning port, bottom microphone, and speaker are in roughly the same positions as the iPhone 5’s, but with far fewer holes, similar to the new iPod touch’s bottom design. There’s one small hole for a second microphone, next to the headphone port, two screw holes alongside the centered Lightning port, and four holes for the speaker off to the bottom right.

Thus, according to the report, the phone will look like the iPhone 5 from the front, an iPod classic from the side, and an iPod touch on the bottom.

Read More