In February, the first images depicting the back casing of an unreleased iPhone began circulating around the Internet. The images showed a matte finish to the casing, but looked otherwise identical to the current iPhone enclosure. Recently-posted rumors now suggest that we could indeed see a matte casing for the next generation iPhone.

A new image MacRumors.com obtained is embedded above and shows the same matte case beside the current iPhone 3G, which is housed in a shinier plastic casing. The side-by-side image shows the clear difference between the two finishes. We have no further evidence that this case necessarily represents what the next iPhone will look like, but it does seem to be consistent with circulating rumors.

Apple is expected to launch a new iPhone this summer and may announce details at WWDC in early June.