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iPhone 5 - What to expect

Apple iPhone users know that traditionally July is the month to expect the iPhone 4 to be announced. We South Africans then typically get it a few months later. So it is pretty sad that so far this year there was no iPhone announced at WWDC, which has always been the case. Current research (read: tip offs) seem to suggest a September release in the US, which means that SA will only receive it around year end.

Now these September launch rumours are not 100% certain, but there are a few things that seem to point to it being soon. First of which is iCloud – Apple’s great new syncing service which will keep all your iOS and Mac devices in sync. Announced in September, the service is a tremendous undertaking by Apple, who has always charged for its cloud based storage. This time round they are rolling it out to everyone, and the the service will be integrated right into the iOS operating system. Users have been testing the iOS5 beta for a while now, and the iCloud services are slowly being enabled. In the last few days Apple has been starting to beta test the iCloud website, so the launch is coming very soon.

What is perhaps more interesting is rumours of Apple releasing a cheaper version of the iPhone. If this is true, huge sales can be expected. For the last two releases of iPhone, Apple kept the older model on the market with a slightly decreased storage capacity at a slightly lower cost. Typically the cost difference was negligible, so most users just opted for the latest model. But in recent times other smartphone manufacturers have started bringing out cheaper and cheaper phones, which was still fairly capable, particularly in the Android camp. Now this might indeed just be the iPhone 4 that is kept on the market, or a new iPhone nano-esque type device.

Sure, people can argue that Apple has always been more expensive than their competitors, but in the mobile market this strategy might not work for them. And the low price of the iPad compared to other tablets already show that Apple can make a high quality product at a lower price. (See our review of the iPad 2 here) So the time might be ripe for Apple to start shipping lower end versions of the iPhone…

This image was recently taken of a strange looking iPhone - could this be the iPhone 5 or it's new little brother?

So what new can we expect from the iPhone 5? Rumours are pretty scarce right now, but most seem to point towards a larger screen. The current 3.5 inch “Retina” display of the iPhone is incredibly detailed, but it is quite a bit smaller compared to other new phones on the market (just one look at the Samsung Galaxy S2 screen in person to see how great a large screen on a phone can look). A larger screen which still fits in the same size iPhone body will mean that the bezel around the screen would need to be much smaller.

Another point where the iPhone can be improved on is the use of glass on the rear of the phone. Yes, it really looks great, and feels great in your hand. But it is also fragile, so we will have to see if Apple will change its choice of material. Case designers are speculating a return to a curved edges around the rear panel, which means that the phone will feel smaller in hand.

The new iPhone 5 will almost certainly ship with the dual core Apple A5 processor, and potentially more memory. Other potential features to look out for is adoption of the NFC standard, implementation of “personal assistant” functionality (from Apple’s acquisition of Siri), and improved camera…

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