What happened to the iPhone 5?

Between all the hype about iCloud, OSX Lion, and Apple’s WWDC 2011, something went missing. The next version of the iPhone, rumored to be called iPhone 5.

So what happened to the iPhone 5?

I’ve been crawling the internet everyday (see picture at right) for news and everything is mum.

Not my Mom, she is convinced it is coming out in September. I want to believe her but, at this point, there is nothing to back that up.

We might as well add her speculation to the rest, here is what I’ve found so far:

TUAW: “Sources inspecting the…iOS 5 firmware have discovered suggestions of two future iPad 3 models as well as a pair of iPhone 5 models.”

MacStories: “A new report from Digitimes, camera image sensor supplier OmniVision has won “significant orders” for Apple’s next-generation iPhone, set to debut later this year.”

That’s pretty much it, my mom’s speculation, TUAW’s, and MacStories. I’m not all that convinced…

Let’s switch into likely outcomes…September, December, next year. Here is BeatWeek’s break down:

  • August – iOS 5 needs beta testing and developer lead time…sounds reasonable.
  • September – the above scenario, except Apple uses its early September iPress Conference to launch the iPhone 5…most likely.
  • Just before the holidays – Something about the iPhone 5 and/or iOS 5 is running late, and we mean late…you’re getting colder
  • Doomsday 2012 – Apple decides to leave the iPhone 4 as the current model for more than a year and a half, unleashing the iPhone 5 in February of 2012 or so….evokes the phrase “epic fail.”

Ok, so we are back to September as the best option. Although, it feels like wishful thinking to me..what do you think?

Oh, and PS, does the following mean the iPhone 4S is dead?

BeatWeek:

“Here’s what really happened behind the iPhone 4S saga, as best we can piece together:

The iPhone 5 will be the next iPhone and it’ll have the same A5 processor as the iPad 2…

Some developers complained that they wouldn’t be able to properly test the limits of their upcoming iPhone apps if they were limited to doing their testing on an A4 instead of an A5. So Apple sent out some jury-rigged iPhone 4 units with A5 processors wedged into them for testing purposes. Word leaked out about it, and some folks misinterpreted this ..being the next commercial iPhone release. And because the last time Apple released an iPhone model twice in a row with a different processor inside they called the second one iPhone 3GS, these folks decided that this “new” iPhone 4 must therefore be called the iPhone 4S..”

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