Competing: iPhone 5, white iPhone 4 theories get release this week

Two competing theories regarding the nature of the iPhone5 having been running parallel amidst the vacuum of any official word about a release date, but there can only be one that's right – and that answer should arrive by default one way or the other this upcoming week. On the one hand there's the "white iPhone 4 is arriving this week" theory based on Apple exec Phil Schiller's public proclamation that there will be a white iPhone coming "this spring." The other theory says that the "white iPhone" in question is actually a white iPhone 5, and since Apple's WWDC keynote is in early June, which is technically still spring, we can still expect the iPhone 5 along the lines of Apple's traditional annual updates. Both theories are equally plausible, and both are justifiable interpretations of Schiller's words. But they can't both be right, and one of them is about to get struck down.

There's the popular scenario in which Apple pops out the long fabled white iPhone 4 this week. In that case you can firmly wave goodbye to the idea of seeing an iPhone 5 (or for that matter iOS 5) in June, as Apple isn't about to add a white model to the iPhone 4 lineup a mere month or so before it turns around and bargain-bins the entire iPhone 4 era in favor of an iPhone 5.

But then there's the other scenario in which the white iPhone 4 doesn't get launched. That would tell us two things. First, it would mean that the iPhone 5 must be just around the corner. And second, it would mean that the iPhone5 is sticking with a design which allows for a white model; in other words, so much for the notion of an all-brushed-metal iPhone 5 era.

Either interpretation holds water, but they can't both be right. The only thing Apple has has to say about the iPhone lately is that the iPhone sold 113% better in the first quarter of 2011 than it did in the first quarter of 2010, which says that the iPhone 4 era has been a successful one. The question now is whether it's nearly over in favor of the iPhone 5 era, or whether Apple has plans to extend it longer than usual by adding a white iPhone 4 to the mix. We'll get some answers this week about the iPhone 5, based on Apple's actions (or lack thereof) regarding the iPhone 4. Here's more on the iPhone 5.

[via beatweek]

The iPhone 5 Compendium: A Complete List Of Rumored iPhone 5 Features To Date

The tech community has been prognosticating about the features of the iPhone5 ever since the iPhone 4 made its debut in the summer of 2010. Here's a quick yet thorough list of purported features that very well may end up on the iPhone 5.

Do a quick review of the articles here on the iPhone 5 News Blog and you start to realize that there are a virtual myriad of new, possible features that could be coming to the iPhone 5. The list is staggering! For as much as we would like to see most of these features end up on the iPhone 5, that simply won't be the case: as the saying goes, you can please some of the people some of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but never all of the people all of the time.

Besides, Steve Jobs and Apple will have to hold some of these goodies back to make the iPhone 6 something to get excited about.

But because news sites and blogs tend to report on rumored features for the iPhone 5 as they pop up, you rarely get anything more than a "roundup" of the hottest iPhone 5 topics. What we've done here is listed everything that we've heard about for the iPhone 5, and give our take on both the coolness factor (how much of a "wow" it will cause at the iPhone 5′s announcement) and the probability factor that a feature will end up on the iPhone 5.

Be sure to check out our new page on all of the rumored iPhone 5 Features, and be sure to let us know if we missed anything!

iPhone 5 is CMDA + GSM world phone

Well, we've known this one for while but now it's sort of official. Barrons reports that in Verizon's earnings call today, Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said Apple's next-generation iPhone will be a world phone. A world phone of course is a phone capable of connecting to both CDMA and GSM networks worldwide. You may remember that Shammo was the Verizon executive who spilled the beans on the upcoming Verizon-capable iPad 2.
Both the Verizon iPhone 4 and the CDMA iPad 2 carry the Qualcomm Gobi chip, which we previously detailed, and this chip is capable of connecting to both CDMA and GSM networks. Apple is rumored to start iPhone 5 production as early as July and is tracking a September release. Apple typically holds an early-September event so we'll probably see the world phone there. The iPhone5 is rumored to look similar to the iPhone 4 and will sport an A5 dual-core processor.

iPhone 5 on September 13th: five reasons release isn’t worth waiting for

If the iPhone 5 really is to be a September baby, it’ll be unveiled in September 13th. And that being the case, our official advice has changed: if you’re sitting around waiting for more information on the iPhone5 in order to make a decision on whether to buy aniPhone 4 now or keep waiting, and it turns out the iPhone 5 really is coming in the fall instead of the summer, go ahead and take the plunge on theiPhone 4 now. Bear in mind that this advice is conditional upon the iPhone 5 being held back until the fall; if it does indeed arrive this June then you’re best off simply waiting another six weeks. But Appletraditionally holds its fall press event on the second Tuesday of September, namely the 13th in 2011, and if that event is to be the first sign of the iPhone 5 along with the iPod models which will debut that day, don’t bother waiting. Here’s why.iPhone 4 rocks: Several members of the Beatweek staff have been using the iPhone 4 since last year, and while we’ll likely all upgrade to the iPhone 5 as soon as it arrives, here’s what we’ve learned about the iPhone 4 in the mean time. It’s by far the most ideal smartphone on the market. It’s faster, more versatile, thinner, and lighter than any previous iPhone model, and offers significantly more battery life with a much better screen. The supposed “iPhone 4 antenna issue” simply does not exist except in the minds of the deviants who concocted it. On its own merits, it’s nearly the perfect smartphone; we’d be hard pressed to come with things we don’t like about it.

4G pipedream: Even if the iPhone 5 does end up offering 4G networking, that’ll only work in the scant areas in which Verizon and AT&T have actually built 4G networks. For the vast majority of iPhone 5 customers, it’ll be the same 3G or even EDGE experience that they’d have gotten on the iPhone 4. Unless you live in one of a handful of big cities where 4G LTE will arrive early, this is not a reason to wait for the iPhone 5.
Verizon already has the iPhone: For those Verizon customers who wanted an iPhone but skipped the iPhone 4 because they thought the iPhone 5 was just around the corner, we’ll ask you this: what exactly have you gained by waiting? A few more months of being stuck with your existing phone, which you clearly don’t want? And now you’re looking at another few more months of doing the same? You’re not winning this battle.
Question marks: In other words, it’s all we know about the iPhone 5. Will it offer better specs and features than the iPhone 4? Certainly. What will those specs and features be, and will any of them be relevant to you? No way of knowing. Waiting means you’re gambling that the iPhone 5 will offer something over the iPhone 4 which will have justified your wait. Waiting does not equal playing it safe; it’s just a different kind of gamble.
Have it both ways: The real clincher is that even if you buy an iPhone 4 now, you can still buy an iPhone 5 later. Sure, you’ll end up paying $200 above sticker for the iPhone 5 because you’ll have used up your upgrade cycle on the iPhone 4 purchase. But nothing says you can’t turn around and sell your iPhone 4 in September (for more than you paid for it, thanks to the magic of unsubsidized pricing), and put that money toward paying your iPhone 5 ransom. You’ll still end up having paid at least little bit for the privilege using an iPhone 4 between now and iPhone 5 launch day, but it won’t preclude you from getting to experience both iPhone generations. Here’s more on the iPhone 5.
[via beatweek]
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Did Sony CEO Howard Stringer Spill The Beans About An 8MP iPhone 5 Camera?

We’re recently reported that very few new features appear to be solid for the iPhone5. But a recent slip-up by the Sony CEO suggests that an 8-megapixel camera might be a definite upgrade for the next iPhone. read Charles Moore’s new article:

MacNN, Appleinsider,, CNET, and several other Apple-watcher sites reported over the weekend that Sony CEO Howard Stringer may have inadvertently revealed that Apple is gearing up to equip the iPhone 5 with an eight-megapixel camera.

9To5Mac’s Seth Weintraub, who attended the event, reports that Stringer, in a Talking Tech with Sony event interview with The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall in New York, commented that his company’s camera sensor plant at Sendai, Japan, is among 15 of the company’s facilities damaged by last month’s catastrophic earthquake and tsunami, and that the supply interruption will delay shipments of sensors to Apple. Since Sony sensors are not used in the iPhone versions 4 and 3GS, which employ 5-megapixel and 3.2 megapixel OmniVision camera sensors respectively, it’s not a major deductive leap to infer that the higher-resolution CMOS sensors sourced from Sony would most likely be destined for the next revision iPhone 5.A PhoneArena blog from six weeks ago notes that OmniVision shares nosedived last summer when a rumor spread that due partly to complaints about a yellowish color shift in still photos shot with the OmniVision sensor camera, Apple might be moving to Sony for its next generation iPhone camera sensors — possibly Sony’s Exmor R sensor unit that is used in the Sony Ericsson Xperia arc and Xperia neo. That 8MP sensor is backlit to help it finesse low light conditions, similar to the way the iPhone 4′s 5MP OmniVision sensor does. Indeed, rumors of Apple dropping OmniVision in favor of Sony as its iPhone camera supplier are longstanding.

PhoneArena also reports that OmniVision has announced that it has an 8MP camera sensor of its own coming, the OV8820, which incorporates the same low-light performance enhancements, plus HD video at 60fps, and Full HD at 30fps, and which had been projected to begin mass production in March, but that production problems have occurred.

Not everyone agrees that Apple will use Sony CMOC camera sensors in the iPhone 5. Analyst Yair Reiner of Wall Street’s Oppenheimer & Co. is quoted by Appleinisider isaying he expects OmniVision to remain Apple’s camera supplier for the fifth-generation iPhone, corroborated by checks with contacts in Apple’s supply channels, dismissing the notion an Apple-Sony hook-up as “rather silly.”

Whatever, regardless of whether the iPhone 5‘s camera supplier is to be OmniVision or Sony, it looks like camera sensor supply problems may be a significant factor in Apple’s evidently postponing the iPhone 5 introduction from an anticipated Worldwide Developer’s Conference release until some time later in the year. With the iPad 2′s camera performance being that unit’s most unanimously panned feature in reviews, Apple will want to get the camera right in the iPhone 5, where it is arguably a much more important feature than it is with the tablet product.

Also, with Sony Ericsson rumored to be getting 12MP+ camera equipped phones ready for summer release, Apple will need at least the 8MP sensors to remain even ballpark competitive in that context.

[iphone5newsblog.com]

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iPhone 5 production begins in July, ships in September; looks like the iPhone 4 – Reuters

Reuters reports that the iPhone 5 will begin production in July and ramp up for a September release.  This fits in with a lot of the chatter out there over the last few months. It isn’t certain why Apple chose to deviate from its previous June/July schedule, but perhaps iPhones are the new back to school items…or are going to be grouped with iPods from now on. Apple typically holds a fall media event at the beginning of September. This would be the perfect place to showcase their new iPhone.

The new smartphone will have a faster processor but will look largely similar to the current iPhone 4, one of the people said. They declined to be identified because the plans were not yet public.
The companies would begin production either in July or August before shipping components to Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, flagship of Foxconn Technology Group, for assembly, they said.

The next-generation iPhone is rumored to include the dual-core A5 processor and graphics enhancements found in the iPad 2, possibly 64 GB of storage, a larger screen, a metal back, and new cloud-based functionality through Apple’s upcoming iOS 5. We will most likely learn Apple’s thinking behind their fifth-generation handset at the upcoming World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in early June. This is the event where Apple is promising the introduction of iOS 5.

iPhone 5 Coming in September, Similar to iPhone 4

According to a report from Reuters, Apple is scheduled to begin production of the iPhone 5 in July/August with a September release. This news coincides with other reports that Apple will push back the next generation iPhone’s launch to a later fall date.
It is unclear as to why Apple is not following the usual summer release schedule for the iPhone, but all signs point to a different roadmap for 2011. The iPhone 5 is reported to have a faster processor and look very similar to the current iPhone 4.Reuters,

“Apple Inc suppliers will begin production of its next-generation iPhone in July this year, with the finished product likely to begin shipping in September, three people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
The new smartphone will have a faster processor but will look largely similar to the current iPhone 4, one of the people said. They declined to be identified because the plans were not yet public.”

Apple’s focus will be on software at WWDC this summer. iOS 5 will be previewed, and the iPhone 5 will most likely ship with the new OS. If the iPhone 5 does closely resemble the iPhone 4, iOS 5 could be what sets the new device apart from the iPhone 4.
We’ve heard that the iPhone 5 will be a significant redesign of the iPhone 4, but there have also been multiple reports claiming that the device will be similar to the current design.
A recent analyst report speculated that the iPhone 5 will have an A5 processor with a 8 MP camera. While the device could remain similar to the iPhone 4, it will definitely have some significant hardware upgrades to set it apart form its predecessor. For a comprehensive look at what to expect from the iPhone 5, check out this infographic.
The white iPhone 4 will supposedly be released at the end of this month, which would give Apple enough time to profit off its sales before introducing the iPhone 5 in the fall.
What do you think about this iPhone 5 news? Are you ok with waiting till the fall for its release, or will you be picking up another smartphone (Android?) this summer?