New iPhone 12 clues show massive win for fans of retro design

If you've not purchased an iPhone since the iPhone 4 because you didn't like the look of all subsequent Apple phones, you're in luck. If the latest batch of rumors and image leaks are accurate, the iPhone 12 (in three distinct sizes) might be right up your alley. The iPhone 12 is rumored to roll with four different models in three significantly different sizes – the two middle models are right around the same size in your hand.

The iPhone 4 had flat edges, with a metal color around those edges that was different from the front and back of the phone. The iPhone 4 came in any color you wanted, so long as it was black – and the WHITE iPhone was a major news event. Now we're here, in the future, where we once again see that the black (or white) iPhone is in fashion.

SEE TOO: iPhone 12 Rumor Round-up: As we know so far

The iPhone 12 leak this week shows the new iPhone that looks a whole lot like the old iPhone. This device – the smallest version, anyway – looks like a concept rendering from the iPhone 4 era, looking like someone couldn't imagine the bulk of the phone changing in any significant way, save the camera module.

The cameras, here, would've seemed like a shock, a mistake, an oddity beyond comprehension, back when the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S were first released. Concept imagery from back then stuck with a single camera – and even that camera needed to sit flush, flat with the back side of the phone.

Now those times are over. All versions of the iPhone 12 have a squircle pad that sits above the flat back side of the phone, with at least one microphone hole, LED flash array, and at least two camera lenses.

Very similar to the iPhone 4, then the iPhone 5, we see the latest leak shows the iPhone 12 rolls with speaker grilles at the base of the phone, along with a centered lightning cord port. These devices even go so far as to include the tiny screws to the left and right of the lightning cord port – they look so exceedingly similar to the iPhone 4, it's almost incredible.

One oddity here, with the iPhone 12 Pro models we're seeing in the imagery/video from MacRumors... there does not seem to be a space for the LiDAR Scanner in the models. Per MacRumors, this is because the area (which we see in the new iPad) where the LiDAR would be isn't indicated specifically in the case drawings they're working with. It's still odd, though, that the case-maker drawings wouldn't include some indication of (DO NOT BLOCK THIS AREA) like they do for each of the camera lenses.

In any case, it would seem that we'll get at least the camera power of the otherwise most-recent most-powerful iPhone set, with the iPhone 11 Pro Max, what with its three-camera array.

Another strange situation here is the relatively large space the iPhone 12 Pro Max dummy requires for its camera array. The size of the squircle is significantly larger than that of the squircle for the iPhone 11 Pro Max. Why would Apple need to space out the lenses beyond the area they had with the iPhone 11 Pro Max, if not to make room for a LiDAR scanner?

We'll likely see the whole collection appear at a September 2020 event, as Apple is generally expected to reveal. If COVID-19 and global pandemic do not change Apple's plans for the future iPhone 12 collection, as the iPhone collections released in the past several years have been revealed and released, we'll see the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro in stores by October 2020, with 5G in full effect.