If the upcoming next-gen iPhone likely won’t get 4G LTE, what will keep consumers’ interest? Turns out the iPhone 5 (or whatever the handset is eventually named) is going to be a ‘bigger upgrade than expected.’
Key to that surprise is a larger display but even thinner profile from the iPhone 4, suppliers are telling Wall Street analysts.
“It turns out that we are picking up that this interim iPhone refresh in the Fall timeframe could be a bigger upgrade than we expected,” Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu tells investors.
While Apple waits for the kinks to be worked out of wireless 4G LTE, the tech giant could unveil an iPhone with a touch display larger than the iPhone 4’s 3.5-inch screen, while powered by the same dual-core A5 processor now used by the iPad 2, overseas suppliers are telling the analyst.
Additionally, despite the larger screen, the next iPhone will be even more svelte, thanks to a thinner bezel, according to the overseas leaks. “We believe this makes sense to improve the iPhone experience without making it too bulky as we have seen with models from competitors,” Wu notes.
A survey indicates Apple could double its U.S. smartphone marketshare if consumers planning to buy an iPhone go for the new handset. Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster says 64 percent of people he survey want an iPhone, potentially causing the iPhone’s share to jump from its current 29 percent. Equally promising are survey results showing just 47 percent of current Android users will buy another smartphone powered by the Google mobile operating system. This compares to 94 percent of current iPhone users who say they will stick with Apple, according to Munster.
Nothing these analysts and suppliers are saying differs widely from what the iPhone 5 rumor mill has been saying for months. It seems we finally have consensus about exactly what the iPhone 5 will look like. Now for Apple to actually unveil the darn thing.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
30 responses to “Analysts Think The iPhone 5 Is Going To Be A Huge Update, Blow Our Socks Off”
Seriously, there is 0 new info in this article and nothing is concrete. The consensus is/has been
-bigger screen
-thinner
-A5
-no 4G
So “analysts” who talked to “suppliers” say the exact same thing and its news? I don’t know about other people, but Apple is seriously running out of good will with me. None of that will blow my mind, and as it stands the Nexus HD or whatever they are gonna call it sounds like a better device. I hope the prove me wrong, but so far my reaction to these rumors is tepid at best.
I am just tired of the same rumours regurgitated daily to fill space. Who cares! When it’s released, then we can see if it’s any good or not, till then I am doing my best to ignore the nonsense.
This isn’t all based on speculation, give COM and break! The advances in chips, RAM speed, etc. foreshadow some of the changes that are coming. Plus, iOS 5 is the most anticipated release of the operating system for the iPhone and we’ve all seen a demo and/or are using a developer version ourselves.
-Chris
http://friendsofmac.net
How is this a “huge update”? Bigger screen, dual core processor, thinner, all the while virtually acknowledging that it most likely will not be a 4G device. Seriously, if this speculation is true, then this barely qualifies as a mild refresh. There are already numerous phones arriving within the next month that will have larger screens, dual core CPU’s AND 4G radios. As it is, the Samsung Galaxy S II is already thinner, lighter and much more powerful than the iP4. If the release date is pushed back to October, then it will competing with quad-core, 4G Android devices just in time for the holidays. If Apple is going to push back the release date this far, then they need to be prepared to bring it.
With or without 4G, that’ll only affect American customers, I believe. And if the iPhone does go to China Mobile, I expect that’ll make up for lost customers who wanted 4G.
“…Apple is seriously running out of good will with me.”
I can’t follow your logic stream. How does an article written by a author about unspecified analysts–none of whom work for Apple–have anything to do with Apple causing you to run out of good will? Why react to rumors at all? They’re flights of fancy and may have little to do with any kind of reality. Articles written by or about “analysts” are interesting fluff, but it’s all throw-away information, nothing to take with any kind of seriousness.
If the new iPhone doesn’t meet your expectations, then by all means get a Nexus or anything else you want. I haven’t seen any new iPhone wannabe so far that matches even my old 1st gen iPhone.
4G is still in it’s infancy, I honestly couldn’t care less about having it or not! It’s just a bragging right with no ground to stand on right now. 4G networks are outperformed by most 3G in areas right now anyways, it’s all a bunch of bull hockey right now. Next year will be an appropriate time for an iPhone with 4G/LTE whatever. Right now tho, all they need is the A5, larger screen and sleeker body. Hell I’m okay with just a bigger screen and the A5 honestly. A lot of the changes are behind the scenes stuff like iOS 5 and iCloud. It’s going to be sick, just not “4G super cool sick”.
You know, i’d be totally down with Apple if they decided to throw in another 30 game-changing features to ios5 that weren’t accessible in the Beta… I’d love to see the iOS get a REAL makeover rather than just really good tweaks!
Because nothing mentioned or speculated will compete with the Galaxy S II, much less what will be out by then. I have my first gen, a 3gs, and a 4, each one were clearly superior to anything else out there. Assuming what has been reported is true this wont be the case. I’ve been using iOS 5 since Beta 1, and while its a huge improvement, its still pretty much putting it on par with a lot of the features of the competitors. Pushing the release back to potentially October is cool if they truly innovate. But no one has suggested them doing anything other than achieving parity with what is out right now. Thats why they are losing good will with me.
word
Some phones are more sophisticated on the spec sheet but it’s the same game again, mostly those phones perform worse despite it’s power. And they are no iOS devices so it’s only a point for people interested in other mobile OSs.
For what will you need quad-core on a mobile device? Batteries need to improve to compensate the bigger power drain. It helps Android because the GUI is drawn by the CPU. With iOS it’s done by GPU.
And like cholton says 4G is useless for the masses. A feature for 10% of the costumers right now. And 3G is fast enough to satisfy mobile needs. (and in countries like Germany it hasn’t started to be deployed in a big way).
So like the article says, a bigger screen, smaller package and a duo-core CPU (and iOS5) are decent updates.
http://tinyurl.com/3ct3pn6
Analysts Think The iPhone 5 Is Going To Be A Huge Dissapoinment, Andoid Is Going To Blow Our Socks Offthat what the title SHOULD READ!!!Android FTW
If it doesn’t cook me dinner then its not a huge update at all.
I don’t really see why Apple would make the iPhone’s screen bigger. I doubt they’ll do it unless they could double the screen resolution like they did with the introduction of iPhone 4.
Making the screen bigger means the quality of the retina display would suffer slightly, and that doesn’t sound like Apple at all. Plus, it wouldn’t make sense in respect to iOS (graphics, icon size etc.).
Correct me if I’m mistaken, but Apple still haven’t announced anything publicly, have they? So I’d say they will either simply refresh the iPhone 4 and not make a big deal out of it much like they did with the Macbook Pro’s a while ago, or surprise us with daring, industry defining changes and innovations.
The competitors don’t play these kind of games, they just take the iPhone and change whatever they don’t ike about it, and this feels like the moment all the big companies have their versions of the iPhone, so it’s up to Apple to make a fresh product for everybody else to imitate.
The usual idea is that you would use NFC to set up the link between the two devices and then do an automatic hand over to a different protocol for doing the actual transfer of data – eg Bluetooth,iphone 5