iPhone 5

According to a report from Reuters, Apple’s LTE chip supplier Qualcomm is having “trouble meeting demand” for smartphone chips and will continue experiencing manufacturing constraints throughout the rest of the year. Qualcomm Chief Executive Paul Jacobs told analysts on a conference call yesterday, “At this stage we cannot secure enough supply to meet the increasing demand we are experiencing.”

With Apple’s next-generation iPhone expected to include LTE capabilities like the recently launched third-gen iPad, many are speculating Qualcomm’s supply issues could lead to delays. It would also make the rumored September or October unveiling and holiday launch all the more likely opposed to June. Is it possible Qualcomm’s supply constraints have anything to do with Apple buying up its capacity?

Apple recently began internally seeding prototype N96— a faster iPhone with 1GB of RAM and an A5X variant to test the performance of the new chip on iPhones.

Qualcomm’s Chief Financial Officer Bill Keitel told Reuters the constraints have lead to increased operating expenses:
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A new report from Korean publication ETNews.com claimed industry sources confirmed Apple will use “liquid metal” technology to make a thinner and lighter next-generation iPhone. Apple acquired rights to the patented amorphous metal alloys from Liquidmetal Technologies’ in August 2010.

According to industry sources, the next flagship phones of the companies are expected to adopt unprecedented materials for their main bodies, that is, ceramic for the Galaxy S3 and liquid metal for iPhone5, both being thin, light and highly resistant to external impacts. The new phase of the rivalry is because neither one of them can get a decisive edge over the other solely with its OS and AP specifications, features or design.

Apple has been rumored in the past to be using Liquidmetal in batteries and SIM card tools, but no solid evidence has backed these claims. Today’s report continued to assert that the iPhone 5, as ETNews.com referred to the device, is expected to launch at WWDC in San Francisco this June. However, the publication does not cite a source for the location and timeframe, so it is possible it is just basing this expectation on a rumor. As MacRumors pointed out, the website has a less than perfect track record. Many industry analysts expect Apple to move its iPhone release window to September or October due to the launch date of the iPhone 4S in 2011.

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Following the mockups of the 4-inch iPhone 5 this morning, one of our awesome readers, Spencer Caldwell, made this beautiful mockup (above). Spencer took this morning’s idea and added more pixels vertically, while keeping the pixels the same horizontally as the iPhone 4S (640-by-1152 pixels). As for the home button on the device, Spencer took the Photo Stream leak from last summer (below) and implemented it on the device. On a larger iPhone like this, it definitely looks better over the circular version.

The mockup fits the sixth-row of apps nicely. So the question comes 9to5mac readers: What do you think of a larger 4-inch iPhone (keeping in mind most reports point to a redesign)?

Cheers, Spencer!

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[slideshow]

A user over on The Verge forums did an interesting mock-up of the 4-inch iPhone. The shorter side’s size remains the same, while the longer side is increased (640-by-1152 pixels). Go over to The Verge for a few more screenshots.

What do you think? I especially like that extra row of apps on the home screen and the ability to better play widescreen videos. Current apps would need a re-write to take advantage of the extra pixels or else letterboxing would occur, so it is a bit far-fetched.

It would also allow current docking stations to work; although, the 30-pin connector is rumored to be a goner.

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We reported this morning that Apple has now begun internally seeding a prototype next-gen iPhone with the A5X chip that debuted in the new iPad and 1GB of RAM. Based on his recent trips to China and Taiwan, Topeka Capital Market analyst Brian White, who has Apple’s price target at $1,001 as of this morning, shared some new details of what he described as “the buzz around the new iPhone 5.” According to White (via Barron’s), he expects a “sleek” new iPhone to launch in the December quarter. He also expects the device to sport a new 4-inch display and include 4G LTE capabilities.

White set his price target based on an expected August or September unveiling of the product. He also claimed the launch “could be extraordinary” by dwarfing previous launches and driving the stock closer to our $1,001 price target.” According to the report, Apple is expected to start component production for the “iPhone 5” in June.

White also claimed sales of the new iPad could have been higher if not for a production issue with panel makers related to the new Retina display. Last month, Apple announced its “strongest iPad launch yet” with sales of three million new iPads on its debut weekend…

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So about two weeks ago we got a tip from a reliable source that Apple was going to call the iPhone 5 (or whatever)- the new “iPhone”.

That seemed a little nuts at the time but what a difference a Keynote makes. As Christian explained, Apple chopped the suffix off if the iPad as part of a branding makeover that will likely expand.  Just like iMac is not called iMac 1,2,3 it looks like Apple won’t be doing the numbering on iOS devices (though it never did with the iPod touch).

So that tip –That the next iPhone is simply the new “iPhone” – seems a lot more plausible now.

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We are fans of Ciccarese Design here at 9to5Mac, even when its renderings do not closely follow Apple’s design language. The design studio’s new iPhone 5 mockup exploits a teardrop design meme in a lovely way (and as commenters pointed out, it’s inspired by the Magic Mouse). As rumormongers are well aware, a teardrop-shaped iPhone 5 was often speculated in the weeks and months leading up to the iPhone 4S launch.

The hype was in vain  for Apple’s new phone, though, that turned out to be almost identical to its predecessor (at least from the outside). With all eyes now on a rumored summer (or is it fall?) unveiling of a sixth-generation iPhone, the pundits again believe the launch will mark a major design change for Apple’s phone with the biggest visual overhaul since the original iPhone.

Now, do not get us wrong: We really do not think these mockups will be accurate. For starters, how would this thing sit flat on a table? Nevertheless, the renderings are interesting and appealing and we would love to hear your thoughts, so meet us in comments. Oh, and what is with the glowing Apple logo on the back, cool or what?

Additional renders are after the break.

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Update: We’ve been told by a source at AT&T that those micro-SIMS are for the forthcoming Pantech Burst and Element which are also on the way to AT&T this week.

A regular AT&T SIM card (left) and a 4G LTE Micro-SIM (right). Click for larger.

A new batch of Micro-SIMs arrived at AT&T stores. We would normally pass on the news—if those were normal non-miniaturized 4G LTE Micro-SIMs. Based on an anonymous tip, Phone Arena noted AT&T now getting LTE Micro-SIM cards “could be an indication that the next iPhone will finally support 4G LTE connectivity.” If you ask us, those are likely for the Nokia Lumia 900 that is hitting the AT&T network on March 18.

Granted, it is not entirely out of question that AT&T LTE Micro-SIMs are in anticipation of a sixth-generation iPhone that is presumably scheduled for an announcement this summer. Apple was the first major handset maker to switch to tiny 3G SIM cards with iPhone 4, which was a move born out of necessity due to space constraints in the 9.3mm device. The iPhone 4/4S are the only Apple products compatible with the Micro-SIM standard.

What about the iPad 3, you ask….

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The iPhone 4S camera system has a fifth lens and larger aperture to let more light in.

It is widely assumed that Apple’s next iPhone is going to be thinner and lighter than its predecessor —the 9.3mm thick iPhone 4S. However, camera modules for smartphones are not shrinking as fast as other tiny components are, and it is becoming a growing limitation when designing ultra-thin gadgets. If Apple is to engineer a thinner iPhone, the company is likely going to redesign the camera system all over again. Conveniently, Sony has a brand-new back-illuminated CMOS image sensor in the works that could be a natural fit for a next-generation iPhone.

Unveiled Monday, it separates the CMOS sensors from imaging circuitry:

This image sensor layers the pixel section containing formations of back-illuminated structure pixels onto chips containing the circuit section for signal processing, which is in place of supporting substrates for conventional back-illuminated CMOS image sensors. This structure achieves further enhancement in image quality, superior functionalities and a more compact size that will lead to enhanced camera evolution. 

Of course, there is no way of telling whether Apple will put the new CMOS sensor inside the next iPhone as the company famously refuses to comment on speculation. Nevertheless, Sony’s chip also benefits from the new white-light image sensors (RGBW Coding) to produce clearer images with reduced picture distortion in dark scenes and sharper videos with a wider range of light.

It also sports the HDR Movie feature that lets the camera combine two different exposures simultaneously – during video capture, one for the foreground and the other for the background. It makes a big difference in bright light situations, as seen in the below clip.

So, what’s in it for Apple?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM2xYCcbV5U]

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZsHsH1EouA]

ADR Studio’s Antonio De Rosa, the designer behind many unofficial Apple concept products in the past, just published his latest design— the iPhone SJ. According to ADR, the concept would include a “Totally glass capacitive screen on a polycarbonate lightweight body” and a moniker inspired by Steve Jobs.

Other specifications imagined by De Rosa as part of the concept include a new 10-megapixel camera and an A6 dual core processor; although, those specifications are obviously just a wish list at this point. As you can see from the mockups, the concept has a much slimmer design and a slightly rounded edge from the back and front panels to the bezel. Otherwise, the concept borrows much of its design from the current iPhone 4 and 4S.

[slideshow]

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BGR reports that the iPhone 5, slated to be released in the fall of 2012, would have a number of differences to the current 4/4S models.  The back will be aluminum and it will likely be surrounded by a plastic or rubberized bezel according to the report.

It will join the glass iPhone face with a new aluminum back plate. It will also cover a redesigned antenna system that surrounds the device, allowing Apple to build the rear case out of aluminum without having to use a large plastic insert above the antennas as the company does on its iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G.

The last we had heard from our contacts at Foxconn was that the iPhone 5 would be delivered in the summer of 2012 along with a slightly bigger screen at the same resolution, faster processor and redesigned form factor.

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As originally reported on our sister blog, the search Goliath has published its annual list of top search queries, a tradition that started eleven years ago. It comes as little surprise that ‘iPad 3’ and ‘iPhone 5’ were among the fastest-growing search terms of the past year. More specifically, ‘iPhone 5’ was the sixth fastest-growing search term on Google.com in 2011, while ‘iPad 3’ ranked tenth.

Feverish iPhone 5 speculation hit its highest point in search the week of September 25, just a week ahead of the October 4 iPhone 4S presser. Searches for ‘iPhone 5’ rose 1,658 percent between 2010 and 2011, easily outnumbering those for the iPhone 4S, as seen in the above chart from the Zeitgeist site. Searches for ‘Steve Jobs’ grew 982 percent in 2011, enough to score the ninth spot.

Called Zeitgeist, the project “sorts billions of Google searches to capture the year’s ten fastest-rising global queries and the rest of the spirit of 2011″, per the official Google blog post. In a testament to the popularity of the Kindle Fire, positioned as an inexpensive iPad alternative, Amazon’s tablet placed ahead of Apple’s new phone, the iPhone 4S, which ranked second in the fastest-rising consumer electronics category, followed by the HTC Sensation, the Samsung Nexus Prime, Sony NPG and the yet-to-be-released iPad 3 (#9).

Two unreleased products piquing such a commanding interest – the cell phone that never materialized and the forthcoming tablet – wow, talk about the power of the Apple hype machine. More below the fold.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAIEamakLoY]

Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs made the list (mark 1:50) was the ninth fastest-growing search term on Google.com in 2011.

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UPDATE [Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 8:50am ET]: Carrier NTT DoCoMo has issued an official statement addressing the Nikkei Business report, included at the end of the article.

According to the Japanese blog Macotakara, which relayed a Nikkei Business story, Apple is gearing up for a 2012 release of both 4G LTE iPhone and iPad on NTT DoCoMo, the predominant mobile phone operator in Japan. According to the machine-translated article:

NTT DOCOMO releases iPad for LTE in the summer of next year and releases iPhone for LTE by autumn.

The Fall 2011 timeframe for a 4G LTE iPhone 5 sounds right as it’s about a year since the October 14 debut of iPhone 4S. The carrier’s president Takashi Yamada and vice president Kiyoyuki Tsujimura allegedly met with Apple CEO Tim Cook mid-November to discuss the deal. They reportedly “agreed in principle” to sell both the next-generation iPhone and iPad. The executives apparently pinned down the rules of the game at the meeting, including order commitment.

Despite the rumor-mill insisting that Apple was readying a 4G LTE iPhone, the company’s management downplayed the fourth-generation Long Term Evolution radio technology because the current crop of 4G LTE chips are not fully optimized for low power consumption on mobile devices. Apple’s chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer said on an April 2011 earnings call:

The first generation of LTE chipsets force a lot of design compromises with the handset, and some of those we are just not willing to make.

The Wall Street Journal reported mid-November that negotiations with carriers in Asia came to a standstill because Apple was requiring iPhone sellers to commit to too large a volume. Additionally, NTT DoCoMo wanted to control what software goes on users’ iPhones, a concession Apple was unwilling to make.

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When author of the official ‘Steve Jobs’ bio, Walter Isaacson, sat down for an interview with Fortune earlier this month, we learned that Steve Jobs had three key industries he wanted to reinvent: the television, textbooks, and photography. We’ve certainly heard a lot of rumors about an iTV in the works, and Apple has arguably already done a lot for the textbook business, despite Jobs having loftier goals for the industry as a whole. While the iPhone 4S’s redesigned camera might be good enough to get an endorsement from photographer Annie Leibovitz, the guys at ADR Studios have created this new ‘iCam’ concept imagining a separate accessory that would turn the iPhone 5 into a full-fledged point-and-shoot.

Keeping rumored iPhone 5 specs in mind, ADR’s concept would include a 10.1 megapixel sensor and provide an “ISO range from 100 to 3200 (extendable up to 6400 equivalent)” for full HD at 60fps. Imagined specs for the accessory include an aluminum unibody, interchangeable lenses, a small touch-screen on the front, LED flash, pico-projector, SD UHS-i slot, motion sensor, and bluetooth. We’re guessing a few companies are already at work on a similar accessory after seeing these gorgeous mock ups.

[slideshow]

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Since CNET posted the iPhone 5 story this weekend…

…the iPhone 5 is a “complete redesign. This is a very large project that Steve dedicated all of his time to. He was not that involved in the 4S because his time was limited.”

…we thought it would be a good time to tell you what our sources think happened to the iPhone 5 that some were expecting. We’ve heard from Foxconn managers as well as Apple employees and carrier partners on this and have tried to piece together the full story.

The iPhone 4S as you see it was originally planned to be released at WWDC with iOS 5, like every iPhone before it.

But something happened around February of this year that threw everything off. Apple was still integrating the Siri team and code into iOS and it was going much slower than planned. In February, Apple knew they weren’t going to be able to get an iOS 5 Beta to developers in April and they sure weren’t going to have a stable version by WWDC. They would be lucky to get a final version of Siri into customers’ hands by the holiday shopping season (Siri is currently in Beta in three languages).

At the same time, Apple’s iPhone 5 (teardrop) plans were moving along on or ahead of schedule and the first prototypes were testing well. CNET says that Steve Jobs was overseeing this project which sounds about right.

With mid-October being the earliest possible date of a Siri-fied iOS being ready – with “Apple-levels” of polish –Apple had to look at its options. Would they release the iPhone 4S at WWDC with a modified version of iOS 4? Without Siri and the other iOS 5 improvements, the update might have seemed a little bland to the average customer.

Instead Apple chose a different route.

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Adding to TiPb’s AT&T store inventory report from earlier this week (above), BGR has posted an image (below) of Case-Mate’s apparent iPhone 5 cases listed in AT&T’s inventory system. The leak comes before Apple’s announcement of the iPhone 5 and/or iPhone 4S Tuesday.

MacRumors mentions three different iPhone 5 case designs listed in AT&T’s inventory system, the Barely There, Pop!, and Tough cases, so an iPhone 5 could make sense. Next Tuesday is sure to be a big event, but in the meantime read what we know about Apple’s newest iPhone.

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According to a poorly translated report from Macotakara, China Unicom’s Deputy Director of Research has confirmed an iPhone 5 with HSPA+ capabilities (21Mbps) during a keynote at Macworld Asia 2011. The image above is from the presentation via PC Watch.

Japanese IT News Site ” PC Watch “Tells That, Research vice president of China Unicom , Huan Wenliang, told iPhone five Will Support W-CDMA based high-speed Data Transfer standard HSPA Evolution “HSPA +” (21Mbps) at Keynote speech in Macworld Asia 2011.

We’ve heard rumors that Apple is in early testing of LTE-capable test devices, and we know AT&T has already started rolling out their HSPA+ tech and even marketing HSPA devices as “4G”.

Curiously, the Qualcomm Gobi MDM6600 chips found in the Verizon iPhone support HSPA+ data rates of up to 14.4 Mbps. Analysts are expecting a 4G LTE iPhone in 2012. (via MacRumors and MacPost)

The idea of a next-generation iPhone shaped like a teardrop dates back to a report published by This is my next in late-April, describing a 3.7-inch iPhone with edge-to-edge glass and striking new design shape akin to the late-2010 MacBook Air, meaning thicker to thinner from top to bottom. Piggy-backing on the story, agile Asian vendors followed up with teardrop-shaped cases. Or so we thought.

While we will ‘talk iPhone’ next Tuesday, M.I.C. Gadget reveals that an iPhone 5 prototype had recently gone missing from the Shenzhen district. “This should explain why we are seeing a whole lot of iPhone 5 cases in China today”, the publication concludes.

Much like the widely publicized iPhone 4 prototype that had gone missing at a German beer bar in California, the missing handset was camouflaged in an iPhone 4-like case (strange because the teardrop phone is wider and taller). Inside: A test model with a finalized iPhone 5 chassis sporting the teardrop design. The publication then builds on this tip by speculating that the device houses “slightly modified iPhone 4 electronics” plus the A4 chip “and even the same amount of memory”.

If this is true, then the tear drop iPhone may be the low end device, and the one inside the iPhone 4 case might be the high end.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU7iCNIumpc]

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As noted by The Next Web, Twitter has announced two developer conferences coming up on October 12th, in New York and London, to discuss Twitter’s integration into iOS 5. Twitter’s Jason Costa describes the event:

There’s a lot going on in the ecosystem and we’d like to take this chance to share the highlights with you – including the latest developments with the platform, areas of opportunity that we’re seeing, and a heavy focus on the iOS 5 Twitter integration for developers. We’ll also be holding a Q&A session with members of the platform team, plus time to hang out with each other.

If rumors are true, these events will be shortly after the announcement of the iPhone 5 or/and iPhone 4S, and most likely after the release of iOS 5. There’s only 150 spots for developers, so grab your spot fast!
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image via Walyou

Last week, we heard that iPhone 4S devices, ones identical in appearance to current iPhone 4s, were rolling of the assembly lines in big numbers. The only differences in this model are the 8 Megapixel camera and A5 Processor. Everything else is the exact same. In fact, Apple employees could be carrying these around without anyone knowing. The ‘iPhone 5′ lost in a bar might have looked like an iPhone 4.

The bad news is that we reported that there were design and production delays that could have pushed the iPhone 5 launch back.

It appears that the tear-drop shaped iPhone 5 with larger screen and thinner, rounder body is seeing continued design and production delays, at least on one assembly line (Apple has multiple production sources – Pegatron, Foxconn, etc). We therefore think that iPhone 5 will be delayed slightly at the very least and may see shortages all the way into 2012.

Since then, we’ve also heard that those iPhone 5 delays might push the teardrop iPhone 5 out until 2012. This is from two separate, additional sources who have ties to Apple and its manufacturing partners. We don’t want to believe this but we’re hearing it more and more…
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