More iPhone 5 metal back, 4-inch screen, NFC rumors

Adding more — if decidedly similar — fuel to iPhone 5 rumor fire, China Times is reporting that trial production has begun on the device, and that it does indeed have a 4-inch screen, metal back/chassis, NFC (near field communications), and perhaps an improved antenna and dual GSM/CDMA support. All this packed into pretty much the same form factor as iPhone 4.

They claim, however, it will only ramp up production in Q3, 2011 (July to September) which would be later than Apple’s typical summer release schedule.

Are the rumors getting steady enough that you’re starting to believe this is what we’ll see in the 5th generation iPhone?

[China Times via GadgetDNA via MacRumors. Note: Image above shows aftermarket iPhone 4 metal back conversion]

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iPhone 5 Digitizer Reveals Larger Screen? Update: Faked

Update: One of our readers (thanks, inexplicability!) has commented with an image that has been cropped and touched up with vertical and horizontal bars in order to show that the top portion of the digitizer has either suffered from an extreme anomaly by the camera, or that it has been ‘shopped. I’m leaning towards the second option, as there are also some marks that have look as though they have been copied over each other. In other words, this one can safely be classified under the ‘fake’ category. You can view the full size image that inexplicability whipped up after the read link.

This rumor comes straight from the shady nether regions of the Internet, so take it for what it’s worth: iDealsChina has reportedly managed to get their hands on an iPhone 5 digitizer, and by the looks of it, the bezel is much thinner. While there are no measurements (or even a pencil to use as a reference point), the screen seems to be larger—possibly a full 4?.

If the iPhone 5 is able to retain its current form factor while increasing screen size, it could finally stand tall amongst Android behemoths such as the Evo or Droid X. Assuming this digitizer is the real-deal, developers may have to update their applications to support the larger screen (unless it keeps the Retina’s 960 x 640 pixel resolution), but that wouldn’t be a huge problem; Android devs are able to support a ridiculous number of different resolutions without much issue.

If the iPhone 5 does feature an edge-to-edge display, it would be one of the most significant design changes yet.

[9to5 Mac]

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