All bets are off when it comes to the design of Apple’s next iPhone, presumably to be called the iPhone 5. It may or may not have an aluminum back, could end up with a larger edge-to-edge screen, or heck, might even have a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. While no one’s lost an iPhone 5 prototype in a bar just yet, we can still gleam some aspects of the phone’s construction from the accessories that pop up months before the smartphone’s arrival. Images of a supposed iPhone 5 case that have just come to our attention show a design that deviates very little from the current iPhone 4.

Most rumors and leaked information should be approached with a healthy dose of skepticism, but this one may call for an even more questioning mind. This image is a render, of a product that doesn’t yet exist, from which we’re trying to extract analysis of a compatible product, that also doesn’t yet exist. Let’s say that this is what that case will look like, and the manufacturer has accurate iPhone 5 measurements to work off of; what then?

The cases seem to support a phone with a flatter back than the curved aluminum designs that have been suggested; while slightly rounded at the edges, they don’t look like the sort of tapering we saw with the 3GS. Button layout appears unchanged since the iPhone 4, with cut-outs for the SIM, volume buttons, camera, and access to the phone’s top and bottom edges. The lip bordering this design may imply we’re not looking forward to an edge-to-edge screen, but it’s really difficult to get a sense of scale from these renderings. On that note, we may be looking at something larger than current iPhones, but with no reference point we can’t say.

Source: MacBidouille {via Google translate)

Via: Electronista