Rumor Roundup: Let's Talk iPhone
Tomorrow is October 4th, the day a lot of us have been waiting for. Apple is expected to announce the next generation iPhone. We have take the time to break down and examine a number of the rumors.
iPhone 4S: The possibility that Apple will release a slightly modified iPhone 4S at a lower price to replace the existing 15+ month old iPhone 4 seems plausible. Prices of iPhone 4 components have come down and this would be an excellent opportunity to upgrade the iPhone 4 to make it even more appealing to customers looking for a “cheaper” smartphone. If Apple went ahead and did this it could be a huge blow to the competition.
iPhone 5: The release of an iPhone 5 is hard to say will happen for certain. Apple doesn’t always release new bodies when they announce an iPhone, just look at the 3G and 3GS. While I wouldn’t be surprised if the iPhone 5 was a completely new design with all of the speculated rumors (e.g. larger screen, CDMA/GSM, Assistant, etc), I also wouldn’t be surprised if all of that stuff was just implemented into the iPhone 4S and that was the only thing released.
Larger screen: I hope this one is true. The trend in the smartphone industry has been increasingly towards larger displays, while Apple typically does things on its own terms, I think a larger screen would be a very welcome addition.
A5 CPU (Dual Core)/1GB RAM: Like the iPad 2, it is widely expected that Apple will implement the A5 CPU into the next iPhone. I see this rumor happening for sure. What’s also been rumored is that the new iPhone will have 1GB of RAM. This is also very probable because the iPhone 4 had 512MB of RAM and it appears to be a trend with Apple to double the RAM in the iPhone each release.
Assistant/Voice controls: The rumor of the amazing voice control feature known as “Assistant” that will be integrated into iOS 5 and will require the newer device because it supposedly needs the A5 and 1GB of RAM to run smoothly seem to be likely to happen. Apple’s acquisition of Siri was specifically for this purpose. You can read more about Assistant over at 9to5Mac.
8MP Camera: The infamous sushi picture that was posted on Flickr with iPhone 5 meta data back in September hinted at an 8MP camera and improved censor. I definitely expect the camera censor to be improved in the next iPhone and I also expect the new iPhone to have more megapixels in the the camera, the question is whether it be 8MP? It could be more or it could be less. We’ll have to wait and see.
One more thing…
Will Steve Jobs make a surprise appearance at the event? What do you think?