In spite of the fact that Apple products generally enjoy a very high customer satisfaction rating (including iPhones, historically) a new scientific poll reveals that the iPhone 5 has not fared nearly as well in customer satisfaction as its predecessors.
Are finding like this just a snapshot of an iPhone 5 that was so over-buzzed that it could never live up to the hype, or is Apple’s flagship product slip-sliding away?
The Chinese language Commercial Times ‘s Jia-Xi Liu reports that Apple has quietly begun a trial production run of the iPhone 5S, which is projected to ship in volume in the first quarter of 2013, along with new versions of the iPad and iTV, also noting that “new low-priced products” are also expected to debut, with Apple apparently planning to throw its one-upgrade-per-year coinciding with an operating system version upgrade precedent overboard.
The Commercial Times article says the new iPhone 5S update will officially commence trial production in December with an estimated 5 to 10 million unit initial run, with a number of Taiwanese and Japanese manufacturers to become major suppliers of iPhone components. Read More
A new complaint has arisen with the iPhone 5 over an awkward scrolling issue with certain diagonal gestures. Surprisingly, hardware issues are rumored to be the cause.
It has been a while since we came up with a new “gate” for the iPhone 5. After Mapgate and Scratchgate, it now appears that we have Scrollgate.
According to some iPhone 5 users, there appears to be a glitch with respect to scrolling on the user interface and certain gestures — particularly diagonal ones. According to Apple Insider:
The issue, first discovered by iOS app developer CMA Megacorp, occurs when a user quickly scrolls back-and-forth across the iPhone 5 screen in a diagonal motion, either from top left to bottom right, or top right to bottom left, and presents itself as an intermittent pause in processing touch input.
Glitches like these — particularly of the scrolling variety — are not uncommon. I’ve had at least one kind of gesture-related quirk with every Android I’ve ever owned. But I think the story here isn’t so much the “glitch,” but rather the fact that faulty hardware — not software — is to blame. Read More
For all of the leaked parts we have seen up this point, what has been sorely absent has been the iPhone 5′s purported processor. Long debated, iPhone enthusiasts are eager to find out what direction Cupertino will go in for the iPhone 5 — the A5X, with its quad core GPU, or maybe the long-anticipated A6, which would be a true quad core CPU. Given that quad core is the new rave in Android smartphones this year, the assumption is that Apple will up the ante on their processor for an iPhone 5 that is bound to do a heck of a lot more than its predecessors.
But in spite of seeing iPhone 5 form factors, screens, and even motherboards, no glimpse of the processor chip — until now. Maybe. Read More
Less than two weeks to go now before all is revealed about the new iPhone’s specifications, and several potential features are still being hotly debated – notably dissonance over whether the new Apple phone will support Near Field Communications (NFC) for “digital wallet” capability or not. A fresh rumor this week is that the new Apple phone could be powered by a quad-core A6 SoC after all. That would certainly be interesting, as it would make the new iPhone more powerful than the current New iPad for presumably another half-year, assuming that the fourth generation iPad will be rolled out in March, 2013.
Of course, it looks like we’re going to see an iPad mini sometime in October, but I’m pretty confident in anticipating that it will share most internal specs. With the iPad 2, which was quietly switched last spring to a smaller, less power-hungry version of the dual-core A5 SoC manufactured using Samsung’s new 32-nanometer high-k metal gate, gate first, LP CMOS process technology. That technological advance allowed the A5′s physical size to be reduced by a very substantial 41 percent. On machines with standard resolution displays like the iPad 2 (and presumably the iPad mini) the A5 gives away little, if anything in performance to the New iPad’s older technology 45-nanometer A5X SoC. The latter has a quad-core graphics engine, but otherwise is similar to the full-sized A5 processor used in the first variant of the iPad 2. Comparitively, the A5X would be poorly-suited for duty in the iPhone due to it’s relative bulk, greater power consumption, and the fact that the iPhone’s display doesn’t need quad-core graphics support, even if it gets up sized to 4 inches, which seems probable. Read More
Jim Dalyrmple and others have thumbed down the latest parts leak of the iPhone 5 featuring what purports to be an NFC, citing the metal-backed parts as incongruous with NFC technology. If the latest parts are a fake, should we believe any of the iPhone 5 fodder we’ve seen thus far?
Apple prognosticator extraordinaire Jim Dalrymple today seconded the opinion of Brian Klug on The Loop that the latest photos of an iPhone 5 parts leak featuring an NFC chips are unlikely to be true. Dalyrmple was quoted as saying:
“Yep”
You’ll probably need a bit of context, won’t you? His iconic “yep” was in response to Klug’s statement that:
“Given the primarily metal backside of the new iPhone, it’s highly unlikely that NFC is in the cards for this generation. In fact, given the very little space at top and bottom dedicated to those glass RF windows, you can almost entirely rule it out.”
Given that Mr. Dalrymple’s yeps carry so much gravitas, we have to not only walk back the purported NFC parts dump from yesterday, but also reconsider all of these iPhone 5 sightings. If, after all, yesterdays parts are bogus, and they constitute the “Most Comprehensive Assembly” of the iPhone 5 we’ve seen thus far, then how can we trust any of this iPhone 5 junk, starting with the 9to5Mac leaks?
And an even stranger question is this: if Dalrymple is so sure that this latest sighting is a fake but that the metal-backed iPhone 5 shots were real, then what exactly does he know, and when did know it?
Posted by Michael Nace under iPhone 5 Rumor on Monday Aug 27, 2012
The first purported sightings of NFC hardware have shown up on what it being touted as the most complete leak of the iPhone 5 yet. Could iWallet really see full implementation in 2012 after all?
The summer of 2012 has featured part after part of the purported iPhone 5 coming out in drips and drabs. One of the most conspicuous absences in these photos, however, has been the inclusion of chips, which would ostensibly give us a much better view of what to expect from this year’s iPhone. A newly leaked photo, however, seems to be showing off a small chip that could very well be NFC, all amidst a new parts dump that is being called the most complete leak we’ve seen yet.
The photos of the apparently assembled front panel of the new smartphone, discovered on a Photobucket account, include a hitherto-unseen square component covered with EMI shielding, that’s tipped to be a near-field communications chip. . . Macotakara identified the potential component, with AppleInsider suggesting the dimensions fit with super-compact chips such as the 5 x 5 mm models offered by NXP. That company already supplies Samsung for the Galaxy Nexus’ NFC implementation and is believed to also power Sony’s NFC-enabled phones.”
A new report appears to reconcile the release schedule for the long-rumored iPhone 5 and iPad Mini, with the former arriving in September and the latter in October.
Over the past few weeks of mass production rumors concerning the iPhone 5, it has been difficult to reconcile the rumors that the iPad Mini would be co-released along with the iPhone 5 in September. In addition to the fact that Apple rarely presents two new, differing hardware products on the same announcement stage, we’ve heard much less about iPad Mini parts than we have iPhone 5 parts. But a new report from AllThingsD appears to offer a more plausible release schedule for both the iPhone 5 and iPad Mini.
The report states:
Apple’s next generation iPhone and its so-called “iPad mini” will debut at two separate events this fall, rather than a single one as has been widely speculated, according to several sources. First comes the latest iteration of the tech giant’s hugely popular smartphone, which will be unveiled at an as yet unannounced event on September 12.
Only after the next-generation iPhone is out the door and on sale will Apple announce the smaller iPad it’s been working on. That device, which is expected to have a display of less than eight inches, will be uncrated at a second special event, which sources said is currently scheduled for October.
While we have little to go on concerning the credibility of AllThingsD’s sources, the release blueprint makes a lot more sense in that it breaks up this co-release rumor. (Can we finally put to rest the notion that Apple will ever co-release products in this way? C’mon!) The crux of this new report is that Apple will position the lesser-priced iPad Mini as an ideal Christmas item — particularly amidst a slumping world economy that could be further shocked in the fall by deteriorating market conditions in both the U.S. and Europe. Read More
We’re being treated once again to what is said to be a glimpse of the iPhone 5, depicting the screen and panel at close range.
Unlike some of the more recent sightings of leaked iPhone 5 parts that have come from Asian-based parts resellers and repair facilities, we now have a sighting of the purported “long body” iPhone 5 from a website called Ubreakifix.com. I agree with MacRumors, who says that “The parts don’t appear to be particularly revealing. We’ve seen similar components before . . .” Those “similar components” would be the overall design of the next iPhone, which leaked parts seem to corroborate that the longer aspect ratio rumor is set to come true.
As you can see in these new photos, the screen and front panel are the same dimensions. There’s also a close-up of the screen, wherein we get a gander at some of the component’s serial numbers (see photo).
Because UbreakiFix is a U.S. company with some level of trust and authority — they bear the Better Business Bureau badge and have a several offices throughout the country — it perhaps lends a level of credence to the veracity of the rumor. But let’s not forget that Case-Mate, an even larger, more established company, leaked iPhone 5 cases last year as well (much to their own embarrassment).
The question I always ask is, how did the leaker get these parts? I understand that keeping sources anonymous is a key ingredient to getting leaked information, but for a U.S. company like UbreakiFix, it’d be nice to know if the parts came from an Asian reseller, or if these parts came direct from the same source or sources that have been supplying other rumor mills.
So, I looked on the UbreakiFix website to see if I could get a better scoop on the story than what MacRumors and others have been reporting. This is what I found out: Read More
More evidence of a late September new iPhone release keeps coming, BGR’s Jonathan S. Geller reports that according to a trusted AT&T source, the company is currently planning to launch the next-generation iPhone during the third or fourth week of September, with second AT&T source affirming that a large training event for regional employees has been rescheduled from the first week of October due to a conflict with a “huge” announcement.
iMore’s Rene Ritchie says that Apple will announce the iPhone 5 on September 12, with pre-orders currently planned to begin that same day in the U.S. at least, with consumer release of the product planned for 9 days later, on September 21, which, as we’ve previously noted here is technically still late summer, with the 2012 Autumnal Equinox happening on Sept. 22, but probably close enough to a Apple’s pledged and reiterated “fall” release for iOS 6. Ritchie also says he’s learned that a second wave of iPhone launches in international markets will begin in the first week of October, likely October 5, the provenance of that information being sources he says have provided iMore with accurate iPhone related launch dates in the past.
In-cell touchscreen technology is also looking more and more like a shoo-in for the iPhone 5. The Register’s Tony Smith reports that Apple has been granted a US patent, number 8243027, detailing in-cell LCD touchscreen technology. Read More
By Miss P
