iPhone 5se: Pictures appear to show Apple’s next phone

The new, smaller handset appears to be a mix of an iPhone 5 and a 6

The supposed iPhone 5se shown on the right, next to what appears to be an iPhone 5 (OneMoreThing)

Apple’s new iPhone may have been revealed in new, leaked photos of the handset.

The company is widely said to be planning to launch a smaller handset, roughly the same size as an iPhone 5, in March. And pictures and rumours are now being revealed of what it might look like.

The new phone appears to be in casing largely similar to the iPhone 5, though it also borrows some of the look of the newer iPhone 6 and 6s.

There is no guarantee that the pictures show the new phone, which has been rumoured to be called the iPhone 5se. The photos were published on a forum called One More Thing, by someone who said that they had received them through the site’s inbox from Vietnam.

But the site has been responsible for accurately leaked photos before, and the images appear to have been shot on the same table and with the same lamp that could be seen in previous accurate leaks of earlier iPad models.

In keeping with other more reliable leaks, the photos show a phone that is mostly the same shape as the iPhone 5 and 5s. But it appears to have more rounded edges, moves the sleep button to where it is on the iPhone 6 and 6s, and swaps the more square buttons from the iPhone 5 for flatter and more round buttons.

Inside the phone is likely to be more powerful components, somewhere between the iPhone 6 and the 6s, according to other reports. The new handset is likely to borrow the chips and cameras from the iPhone 6 and integrate new features — though it will probably leave out the iPhone 6s’s pressure-sensitive display and won’t offer any hints to what the iPhone 7 will look like.