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Actually, the back of this design is much closer to an early iPhone prototype that was recently uncovered in some court proceedings. [1] Looks like they've ditched the extruded enclosure, but maybe the segmented back plate lives on. [2]

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/26/3191793/apple-iphone-proto...

[2] http://www.buzzfeed.com/mattbuchanan/the-original-iphone-4-d...

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I find it more likely this is a functional constraint. The "panel" at the top is likely where the antennas live which needed a non-metallic material to avoid blocking reception. After the "external" antenna debacle I doubt they would want to repeat that mistake.

I don't think they have ditched the idea. You can still see those molded in separators around the sides. I am on a good carrier, so I have never had problems with the 4 antenna design, even though I can get the bars to go down by "holding it wrong".

I like the idea of the body serving the roles of the case, the antenna and providing structural support. So hopefully this is version 3 which fixes all the problems they had.

Possible, although there is also NFC now added to the RF mix, not sure if it can share an antenna or not.

Yeah, I was coming back to this thread to mention this. The antenna around the outside works fine, so the back could be entirely metal, no glass needed. Very bizarre design.

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