Apple is expected to announce its iPhone 5 any day now and accessory maker Case-Mate may have jumped the gun with a page on its website featuring six new case designs for the next-generation smartphone.
Case-Mate took the page down Thursday, but not before Boy Genius Report and others spotted the colorful case designs and documented the images for all to see.
The cases, assuming they're built to the actual iPhone 5's specs, indicate that Apple's next smartphone will have a slimmer profile than the iPhone 4, but what looks to be a wider body. The tapered edges evident in the case designs would mean Apple may be moving away from the flat-panel look of the current smartphone and adopting the curvier aesthetic of its iPad 2 tablet for the highly anticipated iPhone 5.
The now disappeared Case-Mate page clearly referenced the iPhone 5. One case, called the "iPhone 5 Barely There Brushed Aluminum Case," may offer the best view of the iPhone 5's basic shape, an aluminum backing on the next-gen smartphone itself, several ports, including what looks to be a dock connector at the bottom, and a rear-facing camera.
Of course, Case-Mate might not really have the inside track on the iPhone 5 at all. Thisismynext.com runs down the possibilities: "[O]ne, they've got no information and this is nothing more than a publicity play; two, they have generic dimensions but no actual photos and they've worked off of those to create renders; or three, they know exactly what the iPhone 5 looks like."
Case-Mate's purported iPhone 5 cases were priced between $15 and $40 before the page was pulled, text