Apple iPhone 5 "4-Inch" Concept - Design By Spencer Caldwell
Here is a concept of what a 4-inch iPhone would look like, created by 9to5Mac user Spencer Caldwell. A 4-inch iPhone 5 would feature the same width, but would stretch the phone's length to 3.99 inches to achieve a 9:5 aspect ratio. As a result, the phone would achieve 20 percent more pixels than in the current iPhone 4S. Courtesy

With the next generation iPhone, aka "iPhone 5," approaching its widely rumored September 12 release date and Apple pushing out the fourth beta of iOS 6 to developers Monday, it has seemingly become a foregone conclusion that the upcoming iPhone iteration will be the very first device to be shipped with the new iOS version pre-installed on it.

As the Cupertino tech giant announced, iOS 6 would bring a lot of new exciting features, including the 3D mapping, Siri availability on the new iPad, native Facebook integration and many more, to supporting hardware. But is there anything that targets customers, who are planning to purchase or upgrade to the new iPhone?

Over the last few months, the iPhone 5 rumor mill is abuzz with speculations that Apple is set to introduce a larger display with its next-gen iPhone. Rumor has it that the company will follow suit of rival Android devices and release the 2012 iPhone model, boasting a taller 640×1136 resolution display. And now, thanks to 9TO5Mac, it seems that we have the most convincing evidence to prove that a taller iPhone 5 is indeed going to be a reality.

Time To Welcome The Fifth Row Of Apps?

Mark Gurman of 9TO5Mac came up with a report Tuesday, in which he claimed that iOS 6 is completely scalable to a larger 640 x 1136 display. Gurman did some clever trickery with the iOS simulator, the program that allows testing iOS apps on the Mac, and found out that the new resolution not just works fine, but seems to be programmed in the OS.

In Gurman's own words:

"Thanks to some tweaks to the iOS Simulator application that is included in the iOS development tools, we were able to run the simulator at the rumored next-generation iPhone display resolution of 640 x 1136. We did this running both the current public release of iOS 5.1 and the upcoming iOS 6.0 The iOS 5.1 simulator displayed the home screen with a stretched set of four rows of icons. On the other hand, iOS 6 displayed five complete rows - as our sources said Apple was testing for taller iPhone displays.

This proves that the upcoming release of iOS 6, which will obviously come pre-loaded on the new iPhone, is well-aware of taller iPhone displays. It scales perfectly to the taller resolution."

The 9TO5Mac report also confirmed that resolutions other than 640 x 1136 won't correctly display five rows of icons. Other resolutions will show the icons scaling to an iPad-like home screen layout, instead of the proportions and spacing of the existing iPhone and iPod touch display.

"This may just add another layer of proof that the next-gen iPhone display will come in at a resolution of 640 x 1136," said the report.

As iMore noted, it's unlikely that Apple is still testing prototypes at this stage. That said, it's more likely that Apple fans will see a taller iPhone with the dimensions in question, most probably next month.

More Clues From iOS 6: A 9-Pin Dock Connector

Rumors are rife that Apple will be switching from the traditional 30-pin dock connector to a smaller one that would allow saving space inside the device and would prove key to wireless technologies like AirPlay and Wi-Fi sync, replacing some of the old dock requirements.

While the iPhone 5 is highly expected to feature a miniaturized dock connector, with Apple rumored to release a new adapter bridging the gap between the existing 30-pin accessories and the new hardware, the question about the number of pins, the new connector would have, still remains unsolved.

In June, TechCrunch confirmed in a report that the new iPhone would feature a 19-pin port, replacing the current 30-pin port. On the other hand, iLounge recently reported that Apple could shrink its connector dock even further to just 8 pins and that it could also receive a new name altogether.

But now, another 9TO5Mac report said that it could rather be a 9-pin dock connector as a possible reference to this has been discovered in the iOS 6 beta 4.

"The reference comes as a new iOS hardware feature called '9Pin,' so we're assuming this has to do with the dock connector," said the report.

"This reference comes in a part of the operating system that details general hardware features in iOS devices. That mean this new 9-pin connector may not only be implemented into the iPhone," the report added.

When it comes to other highly expected iPhone 5 features, the device is likely to include a much-improved processor, a larger 4-inch Retina display, 4G LTE technology, Near Field Communication (NFC), 1GB RAM, iOS 6, improved Siri, liquidmetal casing, an 8 megapixel (or even higher) rear camera, a 2 megapixel front-facing camera for video chatting and a much-improved battery life.