It had to happen. A teardown of the newly released white color of the old iPhone 4 ;). So what does the teardown tell us? One thing we know is that the White iPhone 4 is thicker than its black counterpart. While there are some reports disputing this, a lot of photo evidence show that the White iPhone4 is 1 or 2mm thicker than the original Black iPhone 4 (9.3mm). If we keep this external structure debate aside, we are now hearing teardown reports claiming that Apple has changed the Camera lens and proximity sensor on the White iPhone 4.
The proximity sensor on the iPhone is used to auto turn-off the display when you are on a call, while the light sensor helps optimise the brightness of the screen. The camera on the back (5MP) seems to have got a change as well. Apple uses a back-illuminated CMOS sensor and as you would know any camera lens takes in light to capture the image. Perhaps the white color required different sensitivity on the lens and this also explains why Apple too so long to ship the white iPhone 4 in the first place.