Photos of iPhone chassis shell show four speaker array and vertically arranged rear camera

A number of photos posted to the web on Saturday appeared to show an "iPhone 7" rear casing with a quad-speaker array and vertically arranged rear camera, microphone and True Tone flash module, both hallmark design features seen on Apple's 9.7-inch iPad Pro.

A user on the Chinese website TouTiau.com, an Italian iPhone accessories maker created the purple prototype on the basis of schematics received from an unnamed source within Apple's supply chain.

The firm's designer later showed off the shell in a video advertisement for a recently launched iPhone case product.

The purported part continued with the porthole style speaker grille introduced with iPhone 6, however, there are four eight-hole ducts at each corner rather than a single vent.

To be considered legitimate, one would need to believe that Apple had found a way to shrink down its speaker modules to minuscule proportions, and also planned to anchor three of them to the next-gen handset's display.

Rumours had suggested that Apple was doing away with the 3.5mm headphone jack in favour of a second speaker. It may be worth noting though, that the analog receptacle was around five times smaller than iPhone's current loudspeaker box.

One can make out a shallow trough at the bottom-right corner of the purple shell, that was identical to a corresponding cutout on iPhone 6s.

This was not in line with previous leaks, that showed an iPhone 7 design near identical to the existing iPhone 6s. According to commentators, the rearrangement of the flash was particularly unusual although the larger camera hole had been suggested by previous leaks.

Not unexpectedly, the case leaks did not include holes for a 3.5 mm headphone jack, Apple aimed to rely on Lightning connector and Bluetooth wireless headphones for audio output.