The iPhone 5 News Blog

Citing “people familiar with the situation,” WSJ is reporting that orders for new 4-inch-plus displays for the iPhone 5 will only commence in June, further suggesting a fall release.

Today, WSJ offered up a new rumor, citing their “people familiar with the situation,” regarding the iPhone 5′s display and production schedule. The report, filed by Lorainne Luk and Juno Osawa, further support the wide-held belief that the new iPhone will feature a screen size increase somewhere in the 4-inch range. This may not come as big news to those who have been following iPhone 5 rumors for the past year or so, but the WSJ article’s claims regarding the production and order schedule for the iPhone 5′s new display is noteworthy:

“Production is set to begin next month for the screens, which measure at least 4 inches diagonally compared with 3.5 inches on the iPhone 4S, the latest phone from Apple, the people said.”

Assuming that WSJ has the story right, this news would obviously disqualify the iPhone 5 from making its debut at the WWDC this year, as it remains to be seen if there would be enough lead time between now and the actual launch of a post-WWDC-announced iPhone 5 to produce enough iPhone 5s for a launch in early July. Jonny Evans at Computerworld makes this point well, stating: “Given the need to stockpile millions of these displays in order to build millions of iPhones, commencing display production marries well with claims of a September launch for the device.”

Stalwart June iPhone 5 release date truthers will ask: how accurate and reliable is WSJ and their “people familiar with the situation?” Read More

It’s hard to keep your finger of the pulse of everything that’s transpiring in the Apple universe, so leave it to the iPhone 5 News Blog readers and commenters to keep me in line. Commenter Michael D. dropped us a line last night and had this to say:

Based upon Apple’s previous methodology, the only time they have allowed retailers to discount their products have been just before release of the next iteration. I saw that one of your posters had mentioned that Target and another store had discounted the 4S and I just noticed on bestbuy.com that there is a $50 savings on the iPhone 4. Coincidence? I hope not.

Michael D.’s missive is well-timed: there are numerous reports today that connect nicely with the rise of iPhone 4S discounts in the U.S. retail sphere: Apple Insider, for example, is reporting that: “Analyst Shaw Wu with Sterne Agee said in a note to investors on Tuesday that he has found in his checks with suppliers that Apple has reduced iPhone orders by between 20 and 25 percent from the 35.1 million units the company shipped in the March quarter.”

Similarly, PC Advisor had this to say about the downslope of 4S orders on Wall Street: “Some Wall Street analysts are ‘starting to panic’ over Apple’s revenues for the quarter, claims Jay Yarrow, in a story at BusinessInsider. ‘Analysts think Apple is due for a big come down,’ Yarrow insists. But it’s hard to see evidence of panic.”

So, here’s the situation: production orders for the 4S are way down, retailers are dropping the prices, and the iPhone 5 — whether because it is actually coming soon or is simply perceived to be coming soon — is directly impacting the sales and order figures for this quarter.

The big question is: do these developments point to the iPhone 5 actually coming soon, or are they only a result of the rumor mill? Read More

A new report dropped today that Samsung is seeing “huge” demand for flexible OLED screen technology, and Apple is purportedly one of the biggest buyers. How is Apple going to use OLED technology, and will we see it used in 2012?

If you’re a big fan of those bendy OLED screens that you’ve seen showcased at sundy tech conventions over the past year or, then you’re in luck: it would appear that either the latter half of 2012 or the start of 2013 will kick off the mainstream use of OLED technology in . . . something. What the device or devices will be — and exactly how the flex-screened OLED technology will be leveraged remains to be seen.

The report comes by way of Apple Insider, who had this to say:

Citing industry sources in the Far East, The Korea Times reported that Apple is “likely” to be one of the handset makers who will ask Samsung to provide them with flexible OLED screens. Mass production of bendable OLED screens is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2012. Talk of Apple and flexible OLED displays surfaced after Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Kwon Oh-hyun revealed his company has seen “huge” orders from device makers for its pliable organic light emitting diode displays. The report from Korea said while a flexible OLED will not be found in Apple’s sixth-generation iPhone, expected to be launched later this year, it’s possible that Apple could adapt the technology in the future.

For those who were hoping to jump on the “second half of 2012″ phrase from the quote above as proof that the iPhone 5 will ship in the fall (on the assumption that Apple will use this technology on the next iPhone),Apple Insider is quick to point out that there is no shot to see OLED on the new iPhone this year. Even with Samsung’s rollout of OLED products commencing in the second half of the year, the initial press run will be “limited,” suggesting that the technology will be extremely expensive and exclusive to begin with.

So, assuming that Apple is going to begin buying into OLED technology, how, where, and when can we expect to see it on their products? Read More

According to Foxconn CEO Terry Gao, the new Apple television set will be called “iTV” and production will begin in earnest. Read about the features and possible release date.

According to a new report from China Daily, Foxconn CEO Terry Gao has confirmed that Apple will indeed launch the fabled iTV in 2012. In a candid report, which is making its rounds on The Daily, the Foxconn CEO was surprisingly candid about the upcoming Apple television set, offering details about its production schedule, name, and release date.

The Daily reports that “Apple’s lead contractor Foxconn is gearing up to produce the sets, although production hasn’t yet started, CEO Terry Gao told reporters in Shanghai yesterday, China Daily reported. The new product will be called iTV and will feature a sleek aluminum shell similar to that of many current Apple laptops and products, and will have a similar high-definition display, Gou said. It will also have FaceTime video chat and be able to accept instructions using Apple’s Siri voice recognition program…” Read More

A purported photo of the iPhone 5's earpiece/headphone component

It seems as if every year before a new iPhone release, we get glimpses of the most abstract, unrecognizable iPhone parts that, to the vast majority of tech mortals, look like little more than a Picasso. How many iPhone users, after all, have ever seen the inside of an iPhone firsthand without having dropped it off a second-floor balcony?

That’s a rhetorical question.

The latest iPhone 5 pin-up photos were reported by MacRumors, who point out that, should this new component prove to be real, then we are seeing a transposition of controls that would be a signal of a new form factor:

If the new part is indeed legitimate, it does represent a significant departure from the component organization in the current iPhone. In the iPhone 4 and 4S, the headphone jack, volume buttons, and mute switch are grouped together on a single component, while this new part associates the headphone jack with the earpiece speaker and Wi-Fi cabling.

Like many regular-Joe iPhone users, I’m not great at eyeballing all of the touch points of a component like this to tell what does what, so I decided to try and compare the same component currently used on the iPhone 4 and 4S. Take a look, and tell me if you can make much sense of the new design, and how the two compare and contrast: Read More

New evidence that iOS 6 beta is on its way to WWDC 2012.

Doubtless you’ve heard that iOS 6 beta is all but a lock for the WWDC this year, as reported by a bit of iCloud code recently unearthed by some folks over a 9to5Mac. For as much as the finding is pretty cool, I don’t think that this news should come as a surprise to anyone: Apple has kept the release of new iOS versions pretty consistent. Even last year, when the iPhone release cycle got a bit topsy-turvy, they still at least got the beta version of iOS 5 out for developers to test, all in anticipation for the fall-release iPhone 4S.

In previous years, developers got their hands on beta versions of the new iOS with ample time to test and peruse it so that the alpha version was ready for the WWDC. Thus, the new iPhone was able to ship with the new operating system. There has obviously been no public release of iOS 6 beta prior to the WWDC this year — no one has really seen it, apparently, since it most likely would have leaked — so, this means that the only way the iPhone 5 is coming in June is if ships in late June-early July with iOS 5.1, or maybe a 5.2 build.

The big question is: is that plausible? However you answer it determines whether a June-released iPhone 5 is possible or impossible. Read More

A new rumor has surfaced that the 7-inch “Mini iPad” will indeed debut this year, and given an ultra-low price tag designed to destroy the competition — even at a loss for Apple.

Apple has never been known as a price leader for its consumer electronics products — their iPhone is competitively priced among other top-tier Android and Windows smartphones, and their Mac desktops and laptops are among the most expensive personal computers on the market today. When it comes to the iPad, however, Apple has dominated the tablet sector by keeping its prices steady , and offering price-to-features ratio that its competitors have not been able to match. The only gambit for competing devices like the Kindle and Nook has been to offer smaller, stripped-down tablets at a much lower price point.

Now, it appears that Apple will leverage the rumored 7-inch “Mini iPad” to obliterate the smaller, inexpensive tablet market as well — even if it means taking a loss in order to do it. Read More

With the preponderance of speculation claiming that the iPhone 5′s new display will be on the lower end of 4 inches, the big, 5-inch iPhone 5 display rumor persists. With the big, new GS3 screen and the marginal success of the Galaxy Note, is the 5-inch display becoming a new smartphone benchmark that Apple could look to imitate?

You’ll recall that over the past few months, we processed some hefty rumors about Apple working on a beefy 5-inch display for its upcoming iPhone 5 release. Delving into the iPhone 5 News Blog‘s repository of  posts on the subject of screen size, I am reminded of this rather big story that came out of Japan on March 29th that new, 5-inch displays are being mass-produced in earnest for the iPhone 5. Prior to that, we also had a rumor on March 22nd out of South Korea — Samsung’s home base — that 4.6-inch screens were in production for the iPhone 5.

And let’s not forget: we’ve also heard rumors about a longer iPhone 5 display that would retain the device’s current width. Tech pundits have seemed to like this theory and accompanying rumor — supplied by iLounge last week — because it manages to balance everything we believe Apple is considering for the iPhone 5′s screen size: they want it to be bigger, but they don’t necessarily want it to radically change the overall dimensions of what looks and feels like an iPhone. But as you can see, the iPhone 5 screen size rumors are so varied and inconsistent that there is virtually no consensus. Heck, we’ve even heard some say that the new iPhone won’t feature any change in screen size. Read More

AppleInsider Staff report that Apple has negotiated more deals with smaller regional domestic carriers — mot recently with Kentucky’s Bluegrass Cellular, California’s Golden State Cellular, and Kansas’ Nex-Tech Wireless, which will begin offering the iPhone 4S on May 18.

So, what does that have to do with the iPhone 5? Nothing directly, but it does seem unlikely that Apple would be setting up more carrier partners with iPhone 4S stock and promotions for the third week of May if they are planning to unveil their next generation handset at the World Wide Developers Conference less than a month after that.

The Appleinsider report notes that these latest regional carrier partnerships come a month after five other small carriers announced they had signed partner deals with Apple, namely: Alaska Communications, Appalachian Wireless, Cellcom, GCI and nTelos which all began selling the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 on April 20. Read More

DigiTimes is floating a new rumor claiming that we’ll see a Mini iPad release in August and the much-anticipated iPhone 5 in September.

Citing an unnamed source in Asia, DigiTimes is claiming to have the inside track on the release dates for both the Mini iPad and the iPhone 5, as well as a 10-inch iPad — all of which are said to becoming before the year’s end. The new article states that “Pegatron Technology reportedly has landed orders for a new-generation iPhone to be launched in September and a 10-inch iPad to be launched in the fourth quarter, according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers,” but that also “a 7-inch iPad, which reportedly will be released in August, will be manufactured by Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry).”

If DigiTimes‘ sources are to be believed, there could very well be an Apple product launch in August, September, and October — and perhaps even November, if the iTV doesn’t make an appearance at the WWDC in June.  But Jonny Evans at Computerworld reminds us that: “These claims don’t come from Pegatron, but from Digitimes’ shadowy world of ‘Taiwan-based supply chain makers’ — in itself a demographic to conjure with, do people make supply chains?”

Is there any reason to believe that DigiTimes has any part of this rumor correct? Read More