It turns out that an unusual iPhone somebody left at a Redwood City bar last week just might be the next generation phone for Apple.
It was camouflaged to look like an iPhone 3GS.
Somehow the site Gizmodo got a hold of it, disassembled it and claims that it is the real deal. They call the next iPhone “drastically new and different.” It is thinner, sleeker and has a plastic back.
Here’s what Gizmo found:
a front-facing video chat camera
improved back-camera with a larger lens than the iPhone 3GS
the camera has a flash
Micro-SIM instead of standard SIM
overall improved display. “It’s unclear if it’s the 960×460 display thrown around before�it certainly looks like it, with the Connect iTunes screen displaying much higher resolution than on a 3GS.”
a secondary mic that appears to be there for noise cancellation
split buttons for volume
power, mute, and volume buttons are metallic
How the phone got in the bar and whether Apple planted it, is still to be determined.
No matter what, it has given some interesting clues into what Jobs and company might be cooking up in Cupertino laboratory.