Analyst: iPhone 5 Will Make LTE A Mainstream Feature In 2012
Posted by Michael Nace on Saturday Jan 21, 2012 Under iPhone 4S Opinion, iPhone 5 Opinion, iPhone 5 Predictions, iPhone 5 RumorFor years now, 4G LTE has been heralded as the “next generation” of mobile community. Analysts now believe that the iPhone 5 will indeed be LTE, and its sales and popularity will make 4G LTE the new standard for smartphones.
We’ll know for sure in a couple of months once the iPad 3 is released, but it looks highly probable that 4G LTE is finally coming to the iPhone 5 this year. Last week, Bloomberg reported last week that the iPad 3 is now in production and will indeed feature LTE. And by extension, if the iPad 3 gets LTE, so too will this year’s iPhone.
You may recall that an interesting survey was conducted not long after the iPhone 4S was released that highlighted what iPhone users saw lacking in the 4S. We did a post about it that is worth taking a second look at. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the lack of a larger screen that irked iPhone enthusiasts, but rather the lack of LTE. In this way, it would appear that the mobile computing community is more or less ready for 4G LTE to become the new standard.
The U.S. mobile networks seems to agree: Verizon and Sprint have invested copious amounts of resources into getting their 4G LTE network infrastructure up to snuff, with the sense that 2012 is going to be the technology’s breakout year. AT&T has perhaps been a bit less high-profile with its own LTE investitures, but given the company’s product-leading persona, there is no doubt that all three of the big three iPhone carriers in the U.S. will be ready to go with a true 4G network, once the iPhone 5 is released.
Now all we need is for the iPhone 5 to be LTE.
And according to new reports, the popularity of the iPhone 5, together with it featuring LTE, will effectively put 4G LTE on the map as the new standard in mobile communications. According to Appleinsider, “LTE smartphones could represent as much as 5 percent of global shipments this year, reaching between 25 million and 30 million units. It noted that while LTE devices are currently a small portion of cell phone sales, that is expected to change in the second half of the year, when Apple is rumored to join the fray.”
In other words, once Apple rolls out an LTE iPhone 5 and sells heaps of millions of them, LTE is going to become an exponentially increasing slice of the smartphone pie.
It is true that Android has been first to market with LTE smartphones, as the analyst in the above-quoted article notes. But he also implied what we all know intuitively: that Apple and Apple alone is the brand that the tech world expects to roll out new technologies. When he says, “While Android (is) still dominating the LTE smartphone segment, Nokia and HTC have launched LTE Windows Phone models, and Apple and RIM are expected to release comparable models running on their own platforms in the second half of 2012,” he is intimating the obvious: the iPhone 5 will be the game-changer in LTE, just as the iPad mainstreamed the tablet PC and the original iPhone pioneered the smartphone as we now know it.
The iPhone 5 Could Make 3G Smartphones Seem Obsolete Very Quickly
The impact of an LTE iPhone 5 in the mobile computing marketplace could be dramatic, with the new iPhone creating a virtual “black hole” that will quickly swallow up the 3G market and make all such devices seem like legacy hardware. Just as 3G quickly became the standard for mobile technology, so too could 4G force all manufacturers to retool for 4G LTE. By 2013, 3G might be a thing of the past.
This could mean crushingly high sales for Apple and the iPhone 5, living up to the bold sales predictions for the iPhone 5 made last year.
We often assume that new iPhone iterations look to onboard users from two iterations back. For example, the perception is that 3G and 3GS users mostly bought the iPhone 4S, while iPhone 4 users were still content to stick with their model and await the iPhone 5. There is conflicting data on this theory. But whether or not it is true, an LTE iPhone 5 could onboard a broad swath of users into 4G LTE — even many of the folks who bought into the iPhone 4S in 2011.
It would not even surprise me if Apple and the U.S. carriers make concessions to allow 4S customers to upgrade to the iPhone 5, even if it is released before the contract minimums. We can assume, after all, that 4G LTE will bring with it new revenue streams for the mobile carriers, who would be more than happy to subsidize a new iPhone and expand their revenues horizontally and residually. In this way, all current iPhone users could be nudged into abandoning their 3G iPhones for the new LTE iPhone 5.
The iPhone 5S in 2013: Count On It
Finally, a prediction: a pattern is developing, and I think we’ll see not the iPhone 6, but rather an iPhone 5S in 2013. In addition to the 3G/3GS, 4/4S pattern, I think that Apple will use two iterations — the dramatically overhauled iPhone 5 LTE and a refreshed 5S — to completely do away with its 3G smartphones and give all of the iPhone users an opportunity to get on the iPhone 5 train. The 5S will most likely be like the 4S: improved processors and software upgrades, all of which will benefit from the faster LTE. But we very well might not be discussing an iPhone 6 until the middle of 2013, with a release date sometime in — wow! — 2014.
By Michael Nace
Michael Nace is the Publisher of the iPhone 5 News Blog and iPhone 6 News Blog. He has published articles about the iPhone since 2010.
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January 21st, 2012 at 1:51 pm
On top of things as usual MR.NACE.Great read.Getting harder & harder 2 keep up with the ‘BIGGER-BETTER-FASTER’ ever evolving smartphone market.
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January 21st, 2012 at 2:36 pm
well i have to say, if the iphone 5 is indeed as good as its made out to be and AT&T does provide some kind of concession i will buy it even if i have the 4S. otherwise i will skip an iteration as the theory implies
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January 21st, 2012 at 5:08 pm
Many thanks, Captain Kirk. I’m always trying to do something different with these stories, rather than just pumping out the same old perspective.
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January 21st, 2012 at 8:17 pm
I think 3G smartphones are already obselete its just people havent realy noticed because of the iPhone. I think if the iPad 3 has an LTE model it will make 3G tablets obsolete definetly.
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January 22nd, 2012 at 6:10 am
3G obsolete already, maybe locally for you, but globally definitely not.
Over here in the UK, mobile companies aren’t even starting to roll out a 4G network until at least halfway through this year, with an aim to have it across the whole country by the end of 2013. The way thing’s go over here, I can’t see it being at a properly completed stage until mid 2014.
I’m sure many other countries are the same, some may not even be looking in to 4G at the moment.
Therefore, I’m not bothered at all if the iPhone 5 has 4G or not as chances are it’ll be upgrade time (to the 6) before the 4G networks are ready over here.
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January 22nd, 2012 at 10:29 am
Forgive my ignorance on this topic, but does the rollout of 4g mean our 3G phones won’t work?? I was hoping to keep my 4s for at least four years or so.
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January 22nd, 2012 at 10:35 am
Not at all, Laura. The 4G smartphones that I know of work on 3G as well, and hop onto 3G if there is no 4G coverage.
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January 22nd, 2012 at 10:38 am
Great to hear from you on this point, and I totally get that from the UK perspective, Darren. I’ve heard multiple UK readers/commenters make the point that, because 4G is slow in coming to the British Isles, that having that feature on the iPhone 5 is not a priority. The U.S. is still Apple’s primary target market, however, and as surveys have shown, smartphone users are clamoring for the feature here. I would imagine that the iPhone 5 will have 3G/4G functionality, and while it may be an underutilised (note the UK spelling
) feature in the UK and elsewhere, it will be a strong selling point in the U.S.
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January 22nd, 2012 at 1:47 pm
I’m sorry how silly of me i meant in the US.
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January 23rd, 2012 at 5:44 am
As a UK resident, I’d still like to see 4G on the iPhone 5. As Darren has pointed out, the networks over here have been hamstrung by Offcom the telephone regulator as it has been slow to auction the 4G spectrum (not to mention the squabbling between the network providers themselves holding everything up too).
Anyhow, it should start to be rolled out in the next 12 months or so here, and while London will get 4G first (other than some test areas) it’d still be nice to have the 4G capability so I can make use of it when it’s available or when travelling to the US etc.
Also, if the public have 4G phones it gives the network providers an added incentive to roll it out faster as they can claim the “first to market” benefits with a guarenteed customer base.
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January 24th, 2012 at 4:32 pm
Providing it doesn’t drain to much battery power Apple will almost certainly include LTE on the next iPhone although for most people it will still be useless because it takes longer for the infrastructure to catch up with the phone technology but it can be a selling point but I don’t think that 3G is going to become obsolete for a long time to come.
I also think that if the 2013 iPhone is a 5S or a 6 depends on how well the iPhone 5 does and how far technology has moved on since the release of the iPhone 5 and what the competition have come up with which will probably be at the WWDC in June. and not another low key October release.
Rumor is that originally they had developed a totally new iPhone 5 for 2011 but Steve Jobs was didn’t like it because of things like battery issues so at the last minute the project was killed and we got a 4S which would make sense considering how long it took to release an upgrade of the iPhone 4.
If it a really popular design and is a good all round package then they will go for a 5S which is cheaper and easier for Apple but if its just not revolutionary enough compared to what the competition are offering then they will go for an iPhone 6 in 2013.
I think that the iPhone evolution is still to slow to know what its future will be considering the first 3 generations were all iPod look and since the release of the iPhone 4 the market has become a much more crowded place with other companies offering superior products Apple might find itself in a situation where it can’t afford not to just go along with the upgrade of existing model idea they have used in the past.
This isn’t MAC v PC where there is no need to keep dreaming up revolutionary products every year because the market is pretty much a constant because of the Windows dominance.
In the phone market there are lots of different manufactures offering different products but also there is also 3 competitiors to iOS ( Blackberry, Android & Windows ( which is growing in popularity ) so Apple have to really work for their share of the phone market and that means new products more frequently.
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January 26th, 2012 at 1:50 pm
Can you overcharge an iphone?
I have got an original iPhone 4 and usually the battery power has been pretty good
Well last week I went away for a short vacation about 3 days or so well I didn’t want to risk losing my iPhone so put the SIM into an old cheap phone.
I plugged in my iPhone the night before because the battery was down to 0 and I usually only charge the thing once it has reached 0 to save on battery life.
So plugged in my phone to charge and before went away forgot to unplug it and now I came to use it took a phone that was at 100% and now despite the fact I have barely used it to day its down to 5%
Yesterday also it went from 100% – 0 when it was just sitting on my desk for the better part of a day.
It seems that since I left the thing charging its totally screwed up the battery so anybody got any ideals how to solve that one?
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