Apple is developing an iPhone 5 with a faster processor, in addition to a cheaper iPhone that resembles the iPhone 4, according to Bloomberg.
Apple's
next iPhone will debut in September and include the company's faster A5
processor, according to a new Bloomberg report citing unnamed "people familiar
with the plans." Other features will apparently include an 8-megapixel camera
and the company's recently introduced iOS 5 mobile operating system.
In
addition, the
June 21 article claims, Apple is developing a smaller, cheaper iPhone that utilizes
"chips and displays of similar quality to today's iPhone 4." That device will
apparently embrace the iPhone 4's design aesthetic.
Rumors
of Apple working on a cheaper iPhone have circulated for months. In theory,
such a move would help blunt the impact of rival manufacturers flooding the
market with less expensive smartphones running Google Android, although it also
risks diluting Apple's brand as a purveyor of higher-end tech-unless Cupertino
can successfully walk that fine line between cost and quality.
With
the rumor mill churning merrily away over everything even passingly related to
Apple's next iPhone (generally referred to as the iPhone 5), certain details
find themselves repeated by Apple-centric blogs and media sources: that the
device will feature the A5 processor, that it will boast more powerful cameras,
that Apple has decided to retool the design language, that the screen will be
wider, that it will debut sometime in the fall.
Some
blogs have broken away from the main pack of rumors. "According to our source,
Apple may hold an event in the beginning or middle of August to announce the
new iPhone, with availability to follow in the last week of August," read a
June 21 posting on the blog Boy
Genius Report, which also predicted that Apple will employ a "radical new
case design" for the smartphone.
That
August date would represent a decided change of pace for Apple, which usually
hosts a mobility-centric event in September, usually centered on the newest
refresh of the iPod line. It would be easy enough to adjust that event to
accommodate the iPhone, which has been cannibalizing the iPod's market share
over the past several quarters.
For
all their intensive digging into Apple's affairs, Apple-centric blogs'
predictions end up being wrong a significant percentage of the time.
Nonetheless, they serve as something of an early-warning system for releases
from ultra-secretive Apple.
During
a June 6 presentation at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, company
executives claimed that more than 200 million iOS devices had been sold, in the
process occupying some 44 percent of the operating system market. The veracity
of that market share percentage aside, Apple is certainly feeling pressure to
keep iOS evolving in order to keep ahead of the growing family of increasingly
sophisticated Android devices; in addition, Apple faces additional competition
from the likes of Research In Motion's BlackBerry franchise and Microsoft's
Windows Phone.
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Nicholas Kolakowski is a staff editor at eWEEK, covering Microsoft and other companies in the enterprise space, as well as evolving technology such as tablet PCs. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, Playboy, WebMD, AARP the Magazine, AutoWeek, Washington City Paper, Trader Monthly, and Private Air. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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