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.