Iphone 5

I thought Michael Nace’s outline of evidence supporting cases both for and against a June release of the sixth-generation iPhone was an excellent summary. Michael continues to be more optimistic about a World Wide Developers Conference new iPhone release than I am. I’ve pretty consistently been of a mind that it’s going to be a September or more likely October unveiling for reasons I’ve discussedin detail in blogs here since last winter.
That’s an opinion; not an advocacy position. It’s based on an accretion of evidence (albeit none of it conclusive), and 20 years of watching and analyzing Apple and its ways. My deductions could be dead wrong. I don’t have a crystal ball, Apple is as usual doing a masterful job of being inscrutable and mysterious, and as Michael has demonstrated, thereis a fair bit of plausible evidence supporting a June release. I just think the contrary arguments are stronger. That said, I won’t be shocked if Tim Cook does announce a new iPhone at the WWDC, which is only two and a half weeks away so it won’t be long now before we know me way or the other.
Of course, if the new iPhone is a WWDC no-show, the debate will just get refined to a narrower timeframe — mid-to-late summer, September, or October. However, if it isn’t the WWDC, I’ll be more convinced than ever that October will be the charm. Why? One of the biggest reasons is because the new iPhone, presumed to be a major redesign, is a big enough deal that I think Apple may deem its release an appropriate commemoration of the first anniversary of Steve Jobs’s death, which will also mark almostexactly a year since the iPhone 4S release.
Turning again to The WWDC for a moment, and a rumored “something big” coming soon, an iPhone sixth-gen release would certainly qualify, but not exclusively. Michael notes that his unnamed source thinks that means something more than “just” MacBooks and it’s too early for it to be the iPad mini. I agree on the latter point, but having been a consummateApple laptop fan for more than two decades, I think the prospect of the first MacBook Pro redesign in more than three and a half years also qualifies as something plenty big.
Apple’s acquisition of the iPhone5.com domain name? Being as they wouldn’t be in complete control of the timing of that, I don’t see being four months in advance of a product release as implausibly early. However, I think itcould also be just Apple being Apple and aggressively protecting its trademarks, especially since I’m increasingly doubtful that the next iPhone will be called iPhone 5 or any other number, but will follow the pattern of the New iPad and be named simply the New iPhone. Could be mistaken about that of course.
Then there’s the matter of the cutback in iPhone 4S orders from Apple’s OEM suppliersans reported discounting. Actually, I think those factors are among the strongest arguments in favor of a new iPhone release sooner rather than later, iPhone 4S sales have doubtless peaked domestically, but the International Data Corporation (IDC)’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report released this week found that 23 percent of the 152.3 million smartphones that shipped in Q1 2012 wereiPhones — a robust 88.7 percent increase year-over-year. thanks to sustained demand for the iPhone 4S following the holiday quarter, and the addition of numerous mobile operators offering the iPhone for the first time.

The Android OS posted even larger gains, with a 59 percent share representing a 145 percent gain year-over-year, but remember that Android use is scattered among many smartphonemakers, most with a multiplicity of models. With the iOS, it’s just the iPhone4S and a couple of discounted older models. Even if 4S sales are slumping somewhat in Q2/12, they’re still gong to be healthy, and Apple can be serenely confident that they’ll trend sharply upward again once the new model is released, as happened last year with the October iPhone 4S release. Its propinquity with the...