A new leaked photo is claiming to show an iPhone 7 design concept. The alleged Apple iPhone 7 photo shows a unit with an edge-to-edge screen.
The image has appeared on Chinese social media website Weibo. The edge-to-edge screen not just eliminates the left and right bezels but the speaker and the home button too. The top and bottom chins appear to be unchanged as well.
According to 9To5Mac, an iPhone 7 edge-to-edge screen would be a major design change. However, this is currently not supported by any other rumors. Previous Chinese media photos claiming to show the rear of the iPhone 7 looked almost identical to the current iPhone 6s.
If there were more photos from alternative angles, the pictures would gain more credibility. However, no other images of the purported device could be found.
There is a slim change that the leaked iPhone 7 image is legitimate and all visual oddities are just consequences of low resolution. However, the single leaked image could be very easily faked by Photoshopping a black rectangle over the front of iPhone 6s.
The leaked photo shows some inconsistency that supports the belief that it is likely faked. The black line between the bezel and the screen is not smooth on the bottom side of the screen display. The line juts forward at one point, a possible consequence of a Photoshop rectangular fill.
The line would make a solid straight edge with the white bezel if the device was legitimate. Another issue is the fact that the area of the photo is heavily pixilated. This suggests again a Photoshop trick, since this is a common technique to disguise modified regions of a picture.
Previous reports suggested that Apple will introduce a major redesign of the iPhone in 2017, with iPhone 4 style chassis and a larger 5.8 inch display. In consequence, expectations had been lowered for the 2016 iPhone 7 design. If the edge-to-edge screen rumor would be true this would be very interesting news.
