Compelling pictures reveal new antenna design for iPhone

We all can recall the big brouhaha the external antenna on the iPhone 4 has caused, and as of now, there is still no real fix to the problem. Apple has issued a firmware update to downplay the matter but drop calls are still a problem for people who use their iPhone 4s sans a case.

Now, it seems that Apple is looking to bury the antennagate issue for good with a proper hardware fix — specifically, a redesign of the external antenna.

The new antenna, presumably destined for the next generation iPhone which is set to be released sometime in the middle of this year, features four black bands separating the antennas as opposed to the three band design on the current iPhone 4. The additional band should see the “death grip” problem disappear altogether.

If the picture is genuine and this new antenna design is real, it gives us a major clue as to how the next generation iPhone would look like.

By the looks of it, we predict that the next iPhone will look very much like the current iPhone 4, externally at least — akin to how much the iPhone 3GS looked a lot like the iPhone 3G. Internally, the next iPhone could be different.

It is also possible that this new antenna design is for the CDMA version of the iPhone 4 for the US market, but considering that the redesigned antenna has a micro-SIM slot on it and that CDMA phones don’t use SIM cards, this possibility is unlikely.

The new antenna could also be for the still elusive white iPhone 4 that Apple says will ship in early 2011. It could be. But launching the white iPhone 4 less than six months away from when the next iPhone is expected to hit the market? Not sure if there’s any point in that.

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