Rumors being what they are, it didn’t take long for news of a possible front-facing video camera on the iPhone 3G to make its rounds on the Internet. After a little snooping around and a little further investigation, however, we have discovered that the little circular object near the top of the iPhone 3G is not a camera at all. It’s a proximity sensor.

“But doesn’t the first iPhone already have a proximity sensor?”

Yes, it does. The proximity sensor was put in place on the first iPhone so that it could detect when you had your face right up close to the face of the handset. When this happened, the iPhone would automatically turn off the display to prevent any accidental button presses. As it turns out, however, the single proximity sensor wasn’t exactly enough, so Apple decided to throw in a second one for the second-generation iPhone.

Too bad. It would have been nice to have a secondary cam on the iPhone 3G. It’d certainly make those video calls a lot easier.