Bloomberg is reporting that Apple's upcoming fourth-generation iPhone may have a "touch-sensitive casing." Much like Apple's Magic Mouse, the phone's body may support finger movements for actions such as scrolling, zooming, and other useful navigation. "'Apple's going to put a lot of innovation, not just on the hardware, but also on the software of the new iPhone,' said Taipei-based Chen, a member of Asia's top-ranked technology hardware research team. The handset will feature a new plastic casing similar to that used for Apple's touch-panel Magic Mouse released last year, he said."
Chen also re-affirmed the public that the next iPhone will go into production as early as April, and be available to the general public in June or July. He also hinted at an updated version of the iPhone OS and an overhauled App Store. However, no further details were given.
Assuming Chen is right, Apple has sure held back a lot of juicy details from the public (and we expect nothing less). If the next iPhone does, indeed, have this new body, it would not only make sense, but it would also allude to the fact that AT&T is still a big part of the picture. Just this past week, AT&T announced their upcoming, Android based, Motorola Backflip phone. This is the first phone to have a touch sensitive gesture area built into the body. This would make AT&T the only carrier with, not one, but two gesture body enabled phones. Perhaps this means that the new gesture body was AT&T's idea. This would further add creditability to Chen's iPhone claims.
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