While we can’t say for sure that rumors of a MacBook-style glowing logo in the iPhone 6 are false, the evidence for this idea is rather … ah … thin.
We first saw photos of what appears to be an ultra-thin rear casing more than a month ago, with some sites then claiming this would facilitate a light-up logo. A new claimed leaked photo is doing the rounds today apparently showing a cut-out logo aperture with a plastic backing thin enough to allow light to shine though.
Possible? Sure. Conclusive proof? Um, no. Exhibit A, the logo cutout on the iPad:
Those images fuelled speculation that the logo would light up when new mails, SMS messages or updates arrived, allowing owners to put their handset on its front and still be made aware of people contacting them. Today our snaps, which we worked with leaks-world lynchpin Sonny Dickson to source, could offer conclusive proof that this is indeed the case.
The reason the logo is cut out in this way is that while people love metal casings, radio signals don’t. Apple positions the wifi antennas behind the plastic logo to allow the radio signals to pass easily through.
On the iPhone 5s, Apple allows GSM, LTE, Bluetooth and wifi signals to pass through the casing by topping-and-tailing the metal rear casing with glass sections:
With the iPhone 6 visuals we’ve seen, there are breaks in the metal casing which are likely to be for radio signals, but they are much thinner than the end-caps on the 5s.
Positioning some of the antennas behind a plastic logo would be one way to make that work.
We’re not saying a glowing logo on the iPhone 6 is impossible, just that we certainly haven’t seen anything close to proof.
