A bit early
This is a rumour. Please stop with the rumours.
Also, isn't it a little early for switching on the apple hype machine?
Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn is preparing its production lines for the iPhone 5, a company mole has claimed. The throat, who previously told 9to5Mac at the end of summer 2011 that the iPhone 5 would not be launched in the near future, told the website that the new model will be longer and wider than the iPhone 4S - …
They're likely true, however, in 6-9mo when the phone comes out, it will release using the usual 6mo-old tech and somewhat underwhelming specs, but be vigorously defended with comments of "it's so efficient and good that it doesn't need all that RAM or CPU power..."
All I have to say is microSD slot and HDMI.... Total cost of Ownership comes back to bite iFans.
All phones use 6 month old technology, because it takes them that long to design it. Otherwise you'd have to believe your chip manufacturers' salesmen, design everything blind, and sell the phone without any testing... As for underwhelming specs, I think both the iPhones 3 and the iPhone 4 had pretty much the best hardware specs on the market for a couple of months.
Obviously if you buy them later in Apple's release cycle then you're still paying top, apple premium, price for hardware that should now have got a bit cheaper. This, I suspect, is how Apple make half their huge profits on this stuff. They're still managing to get £300 for the 3GS, which should be well down on that now. Given how component prices drop, I'd be amazed if they don't make more profit per 3GS now, than they did when they launched it, at twice its current price.
The question the fAndroids have to answer is if Apple are so shit, and so overpriced, how come they sell so well? Sales are too high for it to be all iDiots. And there just aren't that many baristas in the world... Therefore, our beloved platform might not be perfect.
Nice constructive response Sparticus. My allusion to 6mo-old tech is in comparison to selling tech, not development tech. When the iPad2 came out, it sported a 800x600 resolution, which had been exceeded by other manufacturers. It had a slower core-clock. Definitely half the RAM of other products. Apple does a wonderful job of putting a pretty bow on top of near-top-of-the-line kit, but selling it at premium.
I don't think I'll ever buy a phone with a 4" screen. I find the iPhone 4S feels a bit too big already, and prefer the shape of the 3GS. Clearly there are also people who want all the screen real estate they can get, and will therefore prefer larger phones.
So do people think that if Apple go for an iPhone 5 above 4", they're also going to need a new model of the oft-rumoured iPhone Nano? Otherwise they risk losing sales from people who want the latest 'n' greatest shinies, so are unwilling to buy a year-old 4S, but find the new 5 too bulky.
Will this be the year of the 7" iPad and the iPhone nano? Tune in next week, to find out!*
*Or at least get some more rumours to keep you along for the roller-coaster ride.
No Lash, you fail...
I read the article thinking that maybe it had some actual FACT based information, not just another pointless hype story based on nothing but heresay...
The article title states 'Foxconn tooling up for iPhone 5', it then goes on to state that the information is based on rumours, and even questions the relevance of the information given at the end of the article!
Being a bit pendantic here, but...
If in 2011 we were 'expecting' the iPhone 5, and the iPhone 4s was released instead (the 5th iPhone to be released) how can we still be expecting the iPhone 5 to show up, ever. The 5th iPhone has come and gone, just with a different name.