We’ve heard this one before, way back in June, but now the Guardian’s saying that the iPhone 5 is now really, honestly and truly being tested by carriers… and they’ve got a Mission Impossible style description of the procedures Apple is using to keep the iPhone 5 safe to prove it!
Says The Guardian:
My carrier sources tell me that the boxes in which the new iPhone hardware is encased have been transported to carriers for testing. This is an important step in the release cycle for any phone. … The next iPhones go for their testing inside locked and sealed boxes so that the carriers can carry out checks on their network compatibility in their labs. It’s very high security, as you could guess; my understanding is that barely anyone inside the carriers gets to open those boxes, and even when they do the hardware is encased in a dummy body which means there’s no clue to what the actual phone will do.
According to this report, Apple only ramps up carrier testing a few weeks ahead of an announcement, so this would place the iPhone 5 for debut as early as September. If so, this should be a pretty interesting month, culminating in an invitation to an event. Whee!
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
