iPhone 5 rumoured to have aluminium rear and A5 processor

iPad 2 speculation? That's so last month. Now Apple's second-generation tablet is official, the only thing left to gossip about is how much RAM it's got, which simply won't do. Luckily, iPhone 5 rumour season is upon us. Today's instalment concerns a possible redesign and a beefier processor for Apple's flagship smart phone.

As with all probably-untrue good rumours, this one leads back to an anonymous 'Chinese source', originally quoted by the Economic Daily News, and then translated into English by Japanese blog Macotakara.

The key claim is that Apple is mulling using aluminium for the iPhone 5's rear casing, rather than the glass used for the iPhone 4. Going back to its roots, in other words, since the very first iPhone used aluminium for its case.

The source also claims that the reason is to reduce scratch damage, and also make it easier to paint the casing white. The white iPhone 4 has famously never gone on sale for production-related reasons -- CEO Steve Jobs even cracked a joke about it when introducing the white iPad 2 last week. Aluminium, it seems, could be the key to avoiding any such embarrassment with the iPhone 5.

The Economic Daily News has form on this 'white iPhone 5' lark, mind. Last month, it ran a story claiming that local firm Wintek was supplying the touch panels for the device.

The EDN story also suggests that the iPhone 5 will ditch the exposed antennas that were so controversial in the iPhone 4, in favour of taking reception through the Apple logo on the back of the new phone's casing. We assume this would mean no danger of 'death grip' being replaced by 'sweaty palm' as an alleged cause of dropped calls.

The final claim in the story is that the iPhone 5 will use the same A5 dual-core processor as the iPad 2. With a number of dual-core Android smart phones going on sale this year, that would be a logical move, and good news for iPhone gamers, given the meaty graphical processing power that apparently lurks inside the A5.