Man, it feels like it’s been forever since the last time we’ve seen a seemingly legit Apple leak. Maybe they’ve tightened the security around the factory lines; maybe it’s because the last two major hardware releases were mostly indistinguishable from their predecessors at a distance, and were thus rather hard to photograph properly.

Whatever the case, Chinese Apple blog Apple.pro has shots of what might be the next generation iPod Nano. It looks just like the current itty-bitty 6th generation nano, with one notable twist: it’s got a camera.

As a bit of a recap, this was the 5th gen Nano. It had a camera:

Then the 6th-gen came along, cutting the product’s size in half (at the expense of the camera, plus things like a built-in speaker):

According to micgadget (who backs Apple.Pro’s pictures with their “factory sources”), the new Nano’s camera resolution comes in at 1.3 megapixels (or 1280×1024). A bit paltry by modern standards — but if you’ve ever held one of the latest Nanos, you know how little space there is for things like lenses and light sensors. That they (reportedly) even fit such things in there at all is kind of ridiculous.

But what about the Nano’s clip? Wouldn’t that block the camera? If you look closely, the camera lens actually extends through the clip. Clever. Still, I can’t imagine taking pictures on such a tiny device would be a comfortable experience.

Interestingly, micgadget’s sources mention that the prototype photographed is actually around 2 months old, at which point the unreleased Nano was reportedly having some troubles with overexposed photos (a 2-megapixel alternative was also tested, with photos supposedly looking too “washed out”). Apple would obviously fix such problems prior to release, but it’s curious that a detail like that would leak out of the vacuum chamber that is today’s Apple.