Apple's white iPhone 4 isn't thicker than the original, according to Consumer Reports. Meanwhile, a teardown hints at different hardware for the camera and sensors.
Apple's white
iPhone 4 features an altered camera aperture and proximity sensor, according to
a preliminary teardown by a Japanese blog. If confirmed, that would support
earlier rumors that issues with the camera and sensors were behind the device's
repeated delays.
The Japanese
blog
Macotakara posted the images from their teardown,
distributed widely in turn by Websites like
Apple Insider. In those images, the white iPhone
4's camera aperture seems deeper-set within its frame than the one on the
original iPhone launched last year. The proximity sensor has also been
modified, although the Google translation of Macotakara made it unclear exactly
how.
Japanese blogs
aren't the only organizations examining the white iPhone in depth. Consumer
Reports issued a brief research note May 2 suggesting that, contrary to reports
over the weekend, the device's outer shell is the exact same depth as the original
"black" iPhone 4.
"When we
compared a white iPhone 4 with a black iPhone 4 in our Yonkers, N.Y., lab using
high-quality calipers, we found they were both the same thickness (0.37
inches),"
reads that report. "This supports Apple's
asserting that the devices are the same size."
In what one
online wit dubbed "Thicknessgate," the blog
MacRumors posted images of the two iPhone 4
versions side-by-side, with the white one's outer casing slightly thicker. In
the echo chamber of the blogosphere, that quickly led to rampant speculation
that, in order to solve the rumored production issues, Apple had thickened the
device's front and rear panels.
Some analysts
feel the white iPhone 4 could give Apple a short-term sales boost.
"The purchase
of consumer electronic devices is not always a completely rational decision,
and people buy Apple products for many different reasons, including status,
aesthetics, functionality, quality and -cool factor,'" Brian White, an analyst
with Ticonderoga Securities, wrote in an April 27 research note. "In our view,
this delay has created a certain mystique and scarcity value around the -white'
iPhone 4 that we believe could drive incremental iPhone 4 purchases in the
range of 1 million to 1.5 million units per quarter until the iPhone 5
potentially comes to market in September."
Apple released
the white iPhone 4 April 28, following months of delays and speculation. It is
available on both Verizon and AT&T in the United States.
In an April 27
chat with
AllThingsD, Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice
president of worldwide product marketing, suggested that building the white
iPhone 4 had been "challenging" in terms of the "material science of it-how it
holds up over time ... but also in how it works with the sensors."
Apple has
never confirmed a specific reason behind the white iPhone 4 delays. In October,
a "source with connections at Apple" told the blog Cult of Mac that ambient
light leaked into the iPhone 4's case, affecting its ability to take "accurate
pictures." Other reports suggested that Apple's manufacturing partners were
having difficulties whitening the glass to the desired thickness and opacity.
The iPhone 4 sandwiches its exterior antenna rim between two panes of
chemically strengthened alumino-silicate glass.
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