Could this be the iPhone 5?

A new leak this week has shown us the best possible glimpse of what could be the iPhone 5. Is it for real, or just a real good fake?

The pictures below were shown originally on a post by 9To5Mac, an Apple news and rumour site that originally received shots of what could be the new iPhone from one of the biggest repairers of the Apple handsets. These pictures show a handset built out of what appears to be a metal shell, with a headphone port moved to the bottom and a much smaller docking port than we’ve seen from Apple before.

A material switch from glass to metal has been on the cards for some time, as rumours expected this to happen in the last iPhone change, when the iPhone 4S came out instead of the iPhone 5 that everyone else expected.

The screen is also noticeably bigger, shifting to a larger four inch size. This has been a wish-list item for many an iPhone user for a while now, especially as large screens arrive on competing Android devices.

As for the port change, while we like the idea of a smaller dock connector, one possibly built on the microUSB  standard that can be seen on every phone outside of Apple, we’re not sure that the company would drop its iPod dock connector, especially when it has kept the technology around for over ten years.

To change would force every iPod media dock and accessory into possible irrelevancy, making it more frustrating for manufacturers of these devices, as well as consumers. If Apple does make a smaller connector, it’s highly possible we’ll see a conversion connection kit made available as well.

One rumour going around is that the possible new dock connector won’t be microUSB, but rather a new standard, offering faster data speeds to computers and more efficient charging.

There’s always the possibility that the leaks are intentional from Apple, released specifically to get consumers and the media into a frenzy, while misleading about possible ideas. In fact, it’s just as likely that the designs we’re seeing are from an older concept of Apple’s before the company switched to a different look.

Meanwhile, Apple has announced the dates for its Worldwide Developers Conference in June, also called WWDC.

Held every year, WWDC is the platform where new product announcements are typically made, including the AppStore in 2008, the iPhone 3GS in 2009, iPhone 4 in 2010, and Mac OS X Lion last year in 2011.

This year, rumours have been running rampant about what the company is expected to unveil, including new thinner MacBook Pro laptops, the latest version of iOS (6), and a brand new iPhone 5, possibly featuring that design we’re seeing at the top of the page.