As always, everyone is champing at the bit to find out the cool new details about the next iPhone. Maybe it’ll have a holographic keyboard! Maybe it can fly! Maybe it’s actually alive! Okay, there are no rumors to support any of those theories, but there is word on the street that suggests that the next iPhone — the real iPhone 5, presumably — will be made primarily out of something called Liquidmetal. Before you get too excited, it’s worth noting that Liquidmetal and liquid metal are not the same.
The rumor originated from Korea IT News, a tech blog which has reported that unnamed industry insiders have tipped them off to Apple’s designs on a Liquidmetal iPhone. But if Liquidmetal isn’t literally liquid metal, what is it? It’s actually just a composite metal containing, among other things, zirconium, titanium, nickel, and copper. It gets its name because, apparently, it is so smooth that it feels like a liquid. A solid liquid, or something.
Aside from its tactile characteristics, Liquidmetal is quite strong and is scratch resistant. On top of all that, Apple bought the exclusive rights to use Liquidmetal in electronic products back in 2010, so it would make sense that they’d finally want to do something with those rights. That said, metal enclosures can affect cellular reception, but maybe Apple has that bit all figured out. I’ll admit that this sounds pretty neat, but unless the iPhone 5 walks around like a little person or generates gold or something, I refuse to be impresssed.
(via MSNBC)
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