iOS 4.3 code reveals new iPhone and iPad models, rumor mill suggests a dislike of the home button

History lesson, folks. If you dig far enough into iOS’s code, you’ll eventually come across iPhone3,1, which is the AT&T iPhone 4, and the analogous iPhone3,2 (i.e. Verizon iPhone ). It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but then along comes iOS 4.3 with a handful of new mystery identifiers to spurn speculation — namely, two new-generation iPhones (4,1 and 4,2) and three iPads (2,1; 2,2; and 2,3). Speculate all you want, but there isn’t much else at all we can say definitively here, but if we had to take a guess, it’s the GSM and CDMA variants of the next-gen models (plus a WiFi-only iPad). It is interesting to note the lack of an “iPhone4,3″ given the yet-to-be-revealed iPhone3,3 is still there — will the last member ever see the light of day? Outside of iOS 4.3 but still very much related, BGR is claiming it’s heard from sources that the next iPhone / iPad models will eschew the physical home button altogether in lieu of the new multi-finger gestures and that employees at Cupertino are already testing such devices. That seems a little more out there to us; five-finger pinch to home feels extremely clunky. The real takeaway here? We can finally have an iPhone rumor that doesn’t involve wondering if it’ll head to a new US carrier. iOS 4.3 code reveals new iPhone and iPad models, rumor mill suggests a dislike of the home button originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 23:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Posted by on January 13, 2011. Filed under News, Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry