As the launch of the iPhone 5 nears, the rumor mill is again churning out leak after leak about the next-generation smartphone from the guys at Cupertino.

This time around, however, photos of what is claimed to be a fully-assembled iPhone 5 has surfaced courtesy of a site from Japan.

According to the repair shop iLab via a report from 9to5Mac, the photos are of an iPhone 5 unit assembled from leaked parts which will really go into the next iPhone.

Nonetheless, the iPhone 5 leak are of a body that isn’t working yet but shows the whole external appearance of the next-generation Apple smartphone.

From the photos leaked on the site, the iPhone 5 is shown to have more or less the same design as its predecessors, the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S.

The back panel for the iPhone 5, however, is now not an all-glass construction as the leaked photos reveal a back side which has what appears to be a metal casing that’s part of the frame that encloses all the iPhone parts inside.

Furthermore, it is unclear from the photos whether the back panel will still have glass (for the black-colored parts) or will be pure metal with the black-colored parts just coated with a different finish than its gun-metal-colored portion.

The photos also show, if they are indeed the real thing, that the iPhone 5 will have sides finished with the gun-metal-colored coating its back panel has received. The trim on the phone showed in the photos is also not continuous as a black strip is now wedged just above the lock and volume control buttons and near the bottom of the phone.

Moving on to the bottom part of the alleged iPhone 5, the 3.5-mm headphone connector is shown to have been moved there from its previous position at the top of the smartphone.

To make room for this new placement for the audio jack, the connector on the purported iPhone 5 is shown to be the smaller connector which has recently been reported that is going to the next-generation iPhone.

This is the 19-pin connector rumored to be the replacement of the proprietary 30-pin connector of previous iPhones. Furthermore, the bottom of the alleged next-generation shows holes which were not present in the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S.

At the front of the alleged future iPhone, the glass panel of the device is shown to seemingly hover over the metal casing but this could be just because the device shown is not fully mashed together, observers note.

The iPhone 5 is expected to be launched by Apple on early October of this year.

Images from iLab

About Solon Harmony Dolor

A passion for technology and journalism makes this upcoming writer very interested in social media and technology news. Fresh from finishing an English and Journalism degree from the University of the Philippines Diliman, he aims to bring interesting news to our readers .