iPhone 5 Release Date: Experts Say iPhone 5 Will Not Be Available Before 2012
The iPhone 5 is expected to launch sometime in 2012 and is rumored to be compatible with 4G LTE networks. Meanwhile, experts try to understand why smartphone from Apple could not have been launched sooner.
When Apple announced the launch of a new iPhone in October, the excitement reached the sky right before the Oct. 14 event, during which Tim Cook unveiled the new model. But it was not iPhone 5, as many expected. Instead, Apple unveiled iPhone 4S, which is not very different from iPhone 4, according to general consensus.
It all begins to make sense, as new details emerge and experts in multiple tech publications speculate as to why iPhone 5 is not to be revealed until next year.
"Current generation 4G LTE antennas are physically large and use a severe amount of power, meaning that the phone's battery gets eaten alive and there's no internal room for a battery large enough to compensate," writes Beatweek Magazine. "As such, LTE phones on the market now are oversized, short on battery life, and short on whichever other hardware features had to be sacrificed in order to make room for the networking."
Indeed, multiple cases of battery malfunction were reported since the iPhone 4S launched. Many iPhone 4S users are saying that the battery of the new iPhone 4S is simply "terrible."
Experts at Business Insider suggest that the iPhone 4S launch was a corporate tactic, and that it was a mistake.
"If Apple had launched a radically new iPhone 5, more of the folks who currently own iPhone 4S would have upgraded," Henry Blodget writes. "So Apple would have sold some more 4S units. As it is, the iPhone 4S is likely to appeal primarily to iPhone 3G and 3GS owners, non-smartphone owners, and non-iPhone owners, most of whom (like me) are presumably stoked to buy the iPhone 4S."
Some speculations were even made that Apple did not launch iPhone 5 because of a problem with some crucial parts, the production of which was reportedly outsourced to a Taiwanese company. A Korean daily, The Hankyoreh, alleges that the Taiwanese component failed to meet the required stability standard during tests conducted before mass production of the iPhone 5, therefore the company had to launch a replacement, since it could not wait any longer for iPhone 5 in the competitive smart phone market.