Apple's iPhone 5 will make its debut Oct. 4, with new CEO Tim Cook taking the stage to host the unveiling, according to a new report.
Apple CEO Tim
Cook will take to a stage Oct. 4 to introduce the new iPhone.
That
information comes courtesy of
AllThingsD, which relied on unnamed
"sources close to the information" for the exact date. For some time, rumors
have circulated that Apple plans to unveil the device-popularly dubbed the
"iPhone 5"-in October.
There are also
a number of publications, including
The Next Web, reporting that former
vice president Al Gore, a member of Apple's board of directors, told a
conference audience that "new iPhones are coming out next month."
Gore's
comments dovetail with still another rumor that Apple plans on releasing a line
of lower-cost iPhones to complement the iPhone 5, with an eye toward combating
midmarket Android devices.
Rumors suggest
that the iPhone 5 will offer an 8-megapixel camera and an A5 dual-core
processor, along with some deviation from the design template established by
the iPhone 4.
A
Sept. 15 article in
The New York
Times supported those assertions, while offering that the iPhone 5's
unveiling is "just weeks away."
The new iPhone
could also make an appearance on Sprint in the United States. Piper Jaffray
analyst Gene Munster has estimated that giving Sprint the iPhone would boost
the device's overall sales by 6 million units. A Sprint iPhone would also leave
T-Mobile as the only U.S. carrier without an Apple phone in its device
portfolio, although the latter's parent company, Deutsche Telekom AG, has
offered the iPhone for years in Germany (and is allowing customers to preorder
the iPhone 5, although without any mention of a release date or device specs).
Apple's iPhone
5 won't be offered on T-Mobile this year, according to a leaked internal
document purportedly from the carrier's chief marketing officer.
"We are not
going to get the iPhone 5 this year," CMO Cole Brodman is quoted as saying in a
transcript of a company town hall meeting, itself reported on the blog
TmoNews (which bills itself as "The
Unofficial T-Mobile Blog"). The posting was quickly picked up by other blogs,
including the Apple-centric
9to5Mac.
If T-Mobile
ends up acquired by AT&T, its customers could inherit the ability to
purchase the iPhone-but federal regulators seem intent on denying that
acquisition. That would leave T-Mobile with the sole option of negotiating
directly with Apple to carry the iPhone, a deal that would almost certainly
evolve on Apple's terms.
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