Foxconn CEO Touts Upcoming iPhone 5 Design: “Will Put Samsung’s Galaxy III To Shame”
Posted by Michael Nace on Wednesday Jun 20, 2012 Under Apple News, iPhone 5 NewsFoxconn is once again back in the news, with their often candid CEO making headlines over references to the iPhone 5.
According to Apple Insider, “Chief Executive Officer Terry Gou of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., otherwise known as Apple device manufacturer Foxconn, told customers on Monday to disregard Samsung’s recently-released Galaxy S III smartphone and wait for the upcoming iPhone 5 instead.”
Apparently, the comment was not the central focus of Gou as he made his speech. Rather, his speech was more about outlining Foxconn’s desire to usurp Samsung as a component supplier. He exact (translated) words: “the new model will put Samsung’s Galaxy III to shame.”
And he should know, right?
Now that the WWDC has come and gone, and we still have yet to get the iPhone 5, it would appear that October will be the announcement month for the sixth generation iPhone — that could be as many as four months away. One of my arguments for why I believed the iPhone 5 could be announced in June was based on the chatter we were hearing out of Foxconn in the spring, as well as the appearance of rumored iPhone 5 parts. If they turn out to be the real deal, then the fact that we are seeing them now would indicate a sooner rather than later iPhone 5 release.
To me, this news is similar: Foxconn represents the end of the supply chain. They do the assembly. Is it fair to say that if Terry Gou has been made that privy to the iPhone 5′s design, that it is closer to mass production than we think? My feeling is that Gou has had more interaction with the new iPhone than simply reading its specs in a sensitive document. What are the chances that he has seen it in person, complete with its new form factor? What are the chances that he has actually used it?
He obviously has had enough interaction with the iPhone 5 to tout its supremacy over its primary competing smartphone — and an impressive smartphone at that. Granted, Gou might have been just dealing in hyperbole here — but we cannot overlook the comment. It gives us some post-WWDC insight into how far along the iPhone 5 is in production, and when it could be released.
By Michael Nace
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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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June 20th, 2012 at 7:48 pm
Is Terry Gou related to Steve Ballmer? (sp?) They seem to have a similar style.
June 20th, 2012 at 8:23 pm
Thank goodness the old leaks were fake!! Foxconn CEO wouldn’t be telling how the design will put the SGIII to shame if we ALREADY knew what it looked like. Because we would have already known that! It’d be a “no shit” statement if we already knew what the design looked like.
Therefore the leaks were fake
The design that actually looks good is yet to come 
hell yes!
June 20th, 2012 at 8:55 pm
Not if it’s the tall skinny version! Apple needs a grand slam on the hardware… They can so do it, but will they…
June 20th, 2012 at 10:12 pm
Okay . . . . I’ll admit it up front . . . . I’m an Apple loyalist here, been so since the mid 1980′s. But, I’m necessarily of the ‘evolutionary’ rather than ‘revolutionary’ iPhone 5 camp. Just been my experience with Apple for decades mind you. A caution here – Foxconn CEO wishes to bury Samsung, so his comments are biased – but at the same time he reveals what kind of company they are (read: despicable). What we are left with is hope for a ‘grand slam’ – just don’t forget that the basic rubric likely won’t change much – refinement forward – as opposed to the Galaxy III – choppy and rough according to most reviewers. Putting the competition “to shame” may be incremental at this point in the mobile platform wars – ‘grand slams’ may hang in delicate balance, just like a real home run. Go Apple, go, I say!!!
June 20th, 2012 at 10:17 pm
If it put Samsung to shame it would have been released by now smh…
June 20th, 2012 at 11:51 pm
Obviously, the CEO of a company that relies on heavy sales of a product that they produce, would say whatever is needed to hold off competition and build up anticipation for their product. Of course he isn’t going to sit by and watch the Galaxy S3 sell like crazy and take away all the potential buyers of the iphone. He, and his company, can’t afford to have that happen. I think it’s just more hype without much substance.
Nace, I don’t think it’s obvious that he “has had enough interaction with the iphone 5 to tout it’s supremacy over its primary competing smartphone.” I think what IS obvious is that the CEO of Foxconn is getting scared just before the release of the S3 and wants to play down a great device in the hopes of swaying more people to wait for the iphone 5. I’d be nervous if I were him, especially considering they bank on the iphone and Apple hasn’t kept up with the competition for quite a while. If everyone buys the S3 then production will quickly slow down at Foxconn after the initial release of the iPhone.
June 21st, 2012 at 3:45 am
@ MIKE D, I’m agree with you. Apple is so scared because Apple is strong in USA smartphone market and they will take all necessary stapes to keep it up.
But I don’t understand in IOS 6 which features are new. More over the windows phone 8 will be the next big challenge for them.
Apple need to take some steps soon and satisfy it’s loyal customers.
June 21st, 2012 at 4:29 am
god i hope so.
I think about the iphone 5 in terms of cars. I want for example a ferrari (the looks and the preformance), i dont want a ferrari that looks awesome but has the preformance of a renault/lada/…
At the moment, i’m scared that i’ll get the ferrari that looks nice but has a crappy engine.
I want a perfect design + high performance. Apple, it’s up to you to make this happen if you want me to pay 600€ for your product!
June 21st, 2012 at 6:38 am
I haven’t seen choppy and rough on any of the reviews I’ve seen (sg3)! All I’m saying is if apple does release the stretched out 4s with a metal back version, I’ll be passing on this one personally… I think that looks wretched. But I’m hopeful that these leaks (more from case manufacturers now too) are all from one bogus source. If apple is going to continue with the same boring ui (that’s their thing, I get it), then they need damn fine hardware to wrap it in…
June 21st, 2012 at 10:01 am
Apple reminds me of the 70′s Soviet weight-lifter, Vasily Alekseyev that had something like 75 world records because he would only add the least KG each lift so he could surpass his own previous world record. He could have added more all at once but people kept tuning in to watch the next world record. If he lifted to his potential earlier in his career, then what?
Apple, like him, is in for the long term and they’re going to offer that world record iphone one small incremental piece at at time, just enough to keep ‘em wanting more!
June 21st, 2012 at 10:26 am
4.8″??? Gawd, that is just too big for me. My husband has the previous version of the Samsung galaxy and I’m assuming that’s the II model and I don’t care for it and find it a bit laggy when scrolling etc. I’m wondering if the new Samsung will be that way. The things I always hope for in the new iphone is lock landscape and a phone where i don’t need a case to put it in my purse. Something with a highly resistant scratch screen. Ever since the clamshell phones went by the wayside to introduce smartphones, I haven’t liked how I have to put a huge case on my phone. To me, this would be revolutionary! But then men don’t have to worry about carrying sharp objects in a purse.
June 21st, 2012 at 11:23 am
Daveydog, here’s what I’ve been reading, among others:
Android’s interface still feels dated and clumsy compared with Apple’s iOS and Windows Phone.
Brier Dudley Seattle Times, 6/18
The Galaxy S III lacks any game-changing capabilities and is instead packed with a dizzying array of minor new tricks that users will turn to frequently. There are so many of these that it can take hours to learn and configure them. I had the strong impression Samsung’s designers failed to focus and just threw in as many technical twists as they could, some of which didn’t work very well.
Walt Mossberg NY Times, 6/20
Great flexibility comes great complexity. The phone bombards you with warnings and disclaimers — sometimes upside-down. You really need a Learning Annex course to master this thing.
David Pogue NY Times, 6/20
Samsung went a little nuts on the software side, slapping so many tricks and tweaks on top of Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) that it’s easy to feel a bit overwhelmed. Some of them are genuinely useful, some are useless, and some just simply don’t work.
And you’re supposed to be able to say “Cheese” to signal the camera to snap a photo, but it never worked, not once, even when the Samsung reps tried it.
While the S4 processor is pretty hardy, there are rare occasions where it struggles and skips.
Brent Rose Gizmodo, 6/19
Samsung has included a face detection feature in its gallery app, however its performance is hilariously inconsistent. In two practically identical self-portraits, it recognized my face correctly once and ignored it the second time. Was that too much to handle?
There’s one major flaw to image recording with the Galaxy S III and that’s autofocus during video. It jumps back and forth in an irritating fashion even when there’s not much in the way of challenging motion in the frame. That really precludes the GS III from being used for semi-professional or otherwise important video. If you can’t rely on the camera to keep a steady focus, how can you be certain of the eventual output?
Two other aspects of the user experience are troublesome. Firstly, there are still bugs in the UI that have not been ironed out — when waking the phone, you’re sometimes greeted by a quick glimpse of the last home screen you were on before the lock screen appears, and at other times you have to wait for a weirdly long time for anything to show up.
S Voice consistently chews up my words when I try asking it questions, although it works better when instructed to schedule an appointment or set an alarm.
Vlad Savov the Verge, 6/20
The S Voice app is also very choppy; animations stutter, and the voice trying to communicate with you has very disjointed speech patterns.
Casey Johnston ARSTechnica, 6/20
You can’t move one icon on top of another to make a folder; rather, you must first make a folder through the menu button, then drag icons to the folder. Also annoying is the choppy animation of each folder when you go to open one.
The email client is an absolute headache. Samsung hasn’t fixed the email delete bug that was present in previous Galaxy phones that cause emails to take 1-2 seconds to get deleted.
Pocketnow review, 6/20
June 21st, 2012 at 1:24 pm
@Chris L : and I’m sure if you did a search for all the bad things about the iPhone you would find just as much. Why don’t you do a search for non biased material? Most of those reviews are obviously written by iphone lovers that bash the S3 because it doesn’t function the exact same way as their iphone. That’s strange….because I thought the S3 was a ripoff of the iphone….anyways, anybody who is a die-hard iPhone lover is likely to give any non iphone a bad review. So in summary, no offense, but I find your comment to be pretty worthless.
There is a reason why the Galaxy S3 is getting great reviews and the demand is really high. If it were really THAT bad then it wouldn’t have ANY good reviews. Once again, I think it’s just Apple (and now some Apple fans) getting scared that their phone isn’t the top dog anymore.
Why can’t people just accept the fact that Android phones have some really good features, and that the iPhone has some really good features? I’m excited with everything Microsoft has been doing lately. Even though they haven’t had a legit competitive product yet, they keep pushing and they might have something over the next couple of years to give Apple and Google a run for their money. The new Surface tablets seem pretty legit, and who knows what might be coming for their phones in the future.
June 21st, 2012 at 2:14 pm
Just readin’ what I readin’ man – no searches either – and picking up on phone features that are important to ME (video, voice control. UI etc). I like to see what others thinks before laying my bucks down. You should read the actual fu reviews mentioned, actually quite positive! As is my remark “Putting the competition “to shame” may be incremental at this point in the mobile platform wars – ‘grand slams’ may hang in delicate balance, just like a real home run” – in other words, they are all getting closer rather than further from one another. And while I’m at it, ‘Daveydog’ was questioning where the ‘choppy’ reviews were from – I’m merely sharing that. Chill.
June 21st, 2012 at 2:40 pm
Samsung Galaxy 3 Catches Fire. http://m.gizmodo.com/5920150/the-galaxy-siii-is-so-hot-it-catches-fire
June 21st, 2012 at 3:38 pm
I’m chillin.
June 21st, 2012 at 7:01 pm
Right after the “week we are all waiting for” I visit the mall where the local Apple store used to always be busy; not anymore.
June 21st, 2012 at 7:01 pm
Right after the “week we are all waiting for” I visit the mall where the local Apple store used to always be busy; not anymore. I bet if there was at least an announcement of an imminent iPhone5 release, the buzz would be felt in the showroom.
June 22nd, 2012 at 1:06 am
It’s going to be a design that will surprise us all. There will be some critics (obviously), but the design will be something that no one will be expecting … at least not until we see some “supposed” leaked images near September/October.
June 24th, 2012 at 3:25 am
And by the time the “iPhone 5″ releases, the Galaxy S IV will be half way completed and will “put the iPhone 5 to shame” – do you see where I’m going here?
Nothing more than a baseless marketing gimmick to drive back competition demand until their product reaches retail. Nothing Apple has made the past few years has really put any phone to shame in terms of specifications.
Android is at the point in its platform life where it’s even a better multitasking and customizing platform than the dated-looking and incrementally updated iOS. Each new release comparatively between the two mobile platforms shows this more and more over time.
June 25th, 2012 at 1:06 pm
There is going to be an ‘Open Source’ operating system that will work on iPhone hardware using Darwin and the same kernel. Still in early stages (very) but interesting to keep an eye on it me thinks.