Rumor: iPhone "4S" prototypes with A5 chips being tested by game developers

Earlier today, 9to5Mac reported on a prototype Mac Pro that might be in the offing, and now the blog also has word that iPhone 4s outfitted with Apple's A5 chips have been seeded with developers at certain "high-level gaming outfits."

As noted in the post, these prototypes are not necessarily indicative of what we'll see in September, which is when the next-generation iPhone is expected to appear. Instead, these are devices that are designed to let the developers prepare their game titles for the iPhone 5. The source of the information called the device an iPhone 4S, although that name might be nothing more than internal nomenclature.

Other hardware improvements would be expected in any future iPhone, including a rumored 8-megapixel camera and the capability to be used as a true GSM/CDMA "world phone." The A5 is currently used in the iPad 2, and is a dual-core high-performance system on a chip. The graphics capabilities of the A5 are outstanding, with a graphics processing unit touted as nine times as powerful as the one in the original iPad.

Apparently, Apple's reasoning for seeding the developers with the high-powered hardware is that the company wishes to make speedy game performance a selling point for the next-generation device. What better way to do that than to take a few best-selling, graphics-intensive games and supercharge them prior to the launch of the iPhone 5?

[via MacStories]