After various recent rumors indicating that Apple may completely redesign the next-generation iPhone and integrate new materials, a French designer went a little further and came up with an impressive concept design for the much-anticipated iPhone 5, by adding a splash of Liquidmetal.

French designer Antoine Brieux developed a gorgeous concept design, illustrating how the next-generation iPhone could look like. Based on recent reports suggesting that the new iPhone will be thinner and lighter than its predecessors, Brieux created a concept design featuring the iPhone 5 in a Liquidmetal alloy casing.

iPhone 5 LM

Brieux' design, called the iPhone 5 LM - where, of course, LM stands for Liquidmetal - features a 4.5-inch display, a virtual home button rather than a physical one, and a set of wishful specifications. With no physical home button, the concept design suggests that Apple could increase the aspect ratio of the display to 16:9, thus allowing for greater screen real estate while also maintaining its form factor. In addition, the virtual home button could be removed from the screen if an application needs to make use of that extra space.

According to several reports, Apple is unlikely to ditch the physical home button anytime soon, but Brieux' concept points out just how much usable screen area the physical button takes. On the other hand, the physical home button on current iPhones is almost like a trademark, making them easily recognizable.

Wishful Specifications

The French designer's iPhone 5 LM concept illustrates other rumors as well, such as a quad-core A6 chip, a 10-megapixel camera, and embedded SIM card, and the exquisite Liquidmetal case. Liquidmetal is a trade name for a new metallic alloy that could make tougher and smoother cases. The material is very tough, resilient, scratch and corrosion resistant, which would make it ideal for a top-notch iPhone. Apple has exclusively owned the license to Liquidmetal since last year, but so far it has only used it for the SIM card eject tool.

However, while rumors indicate the next-generation will feature a Liquidmetal case, Dr. Atakan Peker, the inventor of the technology, recently told Business Insider that Apple still has a long way to go before using the alloy in large scale products. According to Peker, the Liquidmetal technology "has yet to be matured both in manufacturing process and application development."

Antoine Brieux' concept design is truly inspiring and impressive, but at the end of the day it is only another concept design of what the next-generation iPhone could look like. Apple is not likely to employ the Liquidmetal technology in an iPhone, at least not yet, and a 4.5-inch display seems even less likely, considering the previous generations of iPhone boast of 3.5-inch display. If Apple were, however, to make the next-generation iPhone with a sleek Liquidmetal casing, it would crush all competition and be the undisputed king of high-end smartphones.

Start the slideshow to check out the cool photos of iPhone 5 with Liquidmetal body.

(reported by Alexandra Burlacu, edited by Surojit Chatterjee)