More iPhone 5 Rumors: Smaller and Thinner, Maybe with Curved Front Glass

Submitted by lalit on May 24, 2011 - 12:01am.

Next generation iPhone rumor season is in full swing now and everyday we are getting some new iPhone 5 related news/rumor. Today there were three main iPhone 5 related news. Lets start with the most credible one, as it comes directly from France Telecom CEO Stephane Richard. In an interview with All Thing D, Richard told Ina Fried next iPhone would be smaller and thinner. For a question about their work with Apple on smaller SIM cards, he said:

As you probably know, Apple has been working for years on reducing the size of SIM cards because they need space in the phone. They even thought about a device without any SIM card, that is what is known as the e-SIM project.
All of us told them it was a bad idea because the SIM card is a critical piece of the security and authentication process. It would be very difficult for a telco or carrier to manage the customer relationship. I think that they understood this point. We had a very constructive exchange and dialogue with them.
We are going to work with them in order to standardize a new format of SIM, which takes into account our needs with security and authentication and also is compatible with their wishes in terms of size.
I understood that the next iPhone would be smaller and thinner and they are definitely seeking some space.

As it comes directly from CEO of Apple’s second biggest carrier partner we think this news is definitely real. However, we don’t know if Richard is talking about the rumored smaller and cheaper iPhone or the upcoming iPhone 5.

The second rumor comes from Digitimes and as they have been wrong many times about Apple rumors we are taking it with a big grain of salt. Digitimes reported that Apple is going to adopt a curved cover glass for its next generation model. And in order to start production of these curved glasses they have purchased 200-300 glass cutting machines.

According to our sources and as we all know, Apple is not a me too company and they won’t bring a design change just because there is a Android phone with curved glass, unless the curved glass is adding or improving some functionality. So we don’t think we will see a curved glass iPhone 5.

And the last rumor comes from Apple.pro, they have posted an image of iPhone 5 back cover showing two distinct holes on top right and left corners, one for camera and second for flash. Apple.pro wasn’t able to verify authenticity of the image. It was reported last week that next gen iPhone would have separate camera and flash assembly. It is very likely that Apple is doing this to improve camera and flash performance.