Are you one of the Apple fans disappointed the iPhone 4S didn’t live up to the months of hype over the “iPhone 5”? Don’t worry, the hype train is still chuggin’ along, this time it’s load is full of rumors about — guess what? — yes, the “iPhone 5.”
Apple has just emptied their magician’s hat onto the table, and out of that silk showman’s topper spilled the brand new iPhone 4S. For some of us, the revelation of “just” a faster iPhone 4 was a disappointment… but it was much more than a disappointment to hundreds of case makers who had bet millions of dollars between them on a radical redesign.
Ah, the mythical iPhone 5. A slimmer, tear dropped iPhone with a larger display and a lozenge shaped capacitive home button. What a chimera. It first emerged as a report over at This Is My Next from Joshua Topolsky, the ex-Engadget editor who was also wrong about whether or not the iPad 2 would have a Retina Display. But he’s not the only one who was wrong about the iPhone 5, and for the last six months, it’s been persistently murmured about by tech bloggers, journalists and analysts.
What the hell happened? How were people so wrong?
The alleged victim of tactics used by Apple security employees seeking to recover an iPhone prototype is considering filing a lawsuit against the tech giant. Sergio Calderon, a 22-year-old San Francisco man claims Apple workers impersonated police officers during a search of his home.
Despite Sprint reportedly taking a $20 billion gamble to get into the iPhone game, Apple’s new iPhone 5 won’t work on 4G networks. The new handset won’t operate on LTE or other 4G networks which are just starting to roll out, according to the Wall Street Journal.
It’s something we’ve been saying for a year: an LTE or 4G iPhone is impossible until 2012 at the minimum.
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It’s incredible what Apple can manage to keep secret about its most anticipated devices, right up until zero hour. For example, even after months of consolidating rumors, this is the first time that we’ve heard that not only will the next iPhone have artificial intelligence thanks to Assistant, but can be hurled in a boomerang attack, expand into a working lightsaber, perform nanosurgery and even double as a tasty chocolate bar.
Incredible reporting by Jimmy Kimmel’s technology correspondent, Guillermo Diaz. Now that’s a scoop.
So the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Sprint was so desperate to get the iPhone now that AT&T’s exclusivity deal is up, they actually bet the future of their company on it: they’ve placed an order for over $20 billion in iPhone sales over the next four years. Sprint won’t break even on the deal until 2014, and if the iPhone suddenly becomes less popular (yeah, right), the deal could sink the company.
That’s a big story. It seems almost unbelievable, in fact, that Sprint would bet the future of its company on just one device, but that’s exactly what they appear to have done.
Want to know something even more unbelievable, though? According to a follow up report… Sprint’s ballsy deal secured them exclusive rights to the iPhone 5.
Now that questions over when the iPhone 5 will appear seems to be settled, new speculation has shifted to whether former CEO and Apple stage-master Steve Jobs will show up on what was supposed to be new CEO Tim Cook’s day.
There is a bombastic upstate New York car dealer who loves to say his auto sales are “huge.” However, the first day of iPhone 5 sales expected to start this week, could redefine the definition. The enormous “pent up demand” for the new iPhone will “shatter” Apple’s previous one-day sales record of 1.7 million handsets, according to a Wall Street analyst.
While recent reports have quashed the possibility of an all-new iPhone 5 — and evidence has suggested an iPhone 4S will be the only device Apple announces on October 4 — iPhone 5 cases delivered to AT&T keep our dreams of all-new iPhone alive.
Right now, it’s looking unlikely that the next iPhone will be a true new design, a real iPhone 5. Instead, it looks almost certain that Apple will announced the iPhone 4S on Tuesday instead… an upgraded device that looks almost identical to the iPhone 4.
That said, the sheer volume of reports that say that Apple has been working on a thinner, teardrop shaped iPhone with a bigger screen are hard to ignore, and many industry folks’ best guess is that that device will come in 2012. And here’s what it will look like.