Description :
We received word from a reliable source at Foxconn in China that the iPhone 5, as it is currently being called, is now gearing for production.
The source said various sample devices are also floating around (they vary slightly from one another), so it is impossible to tell which one will be the final. Some things in common with all of them, however, are:
- 4+ inch display (made by LG on at least one of them).
- No teardrop-shaped devices, as rumored in the lead up to the iPhone 4S. Samples so far have been symmetrical in thickness (also longer/wider).
- Neither of the sample devices have the iPhone 4/4S form factor.
- Neither of the devices are the final versions.
We also heard the non-teardrop and 4-inch display information previously in a report from iLounge, but what is important to note here is that iPhone 4S production did not gear up until late spring of last year. If we follow patterns and give a five month-ish lead time, it would appear that Apple is back on its new iPhone launch for summer/WWDC pattern that it maintained until last year.
We are still a long way off however.
This source is the same that indicated to us late last summer that the iPhone 5 was not happening against the prevailing tide of information, and that Apple was building the iPhone 4S model instead.
iPhone 5 - Lytro Camera Technology
The iPhone 5 News Blog picked up on a general 9to5Mac story about Steve Jobs having a chat with the CEO of a cool startup, Lytro, that makes a camera using some far-out technology that neither blog seems to really understand, or at least explain.
"iPhone 5 enthusiasts are hearing more about Lytro camera technology," writes Michael Nace, of The iPhone 5 News Blog. "Will Apple equip the iPhone 5 with Lytro, or go with the new Sony camera sensor?"
Nace inadvertently reveals one of the central dynamics that drive iPhone 5, and iPad 3, rumors. "With this kind of technology, it's no wonder that analysts have imagined it being included on the iPhone 5," he writes. If it's awesome, how can it not be in the Next Whatever?
We couldn't find dimensions for the Lytro camera, but a picture we found online shows fitting it into any current or future iPhone would qualify as a "radical" redesign. And the price tag, ranging from $399 to $499, would radically redesign the iPhone in another way.
9to5Mac built its story on two points : Lytro's technology (which you can try to follow at the company's website) and a brief passage from an upcoming book about Apple, describing a brief meeting between Steve Jobs and Lytro CEO Ren Ng. Even Nace notes, "While Apple and Lytro never forged any kind of partnership or licensing agreement, Steve Jobs reportedly picked their brains over the technology, and was incredibly excited about its possibilities."
And so, clearly, is the iOSphere.
And then after all that buildup, Nace topples it like a house of cards. "In spite of Jobs loving Lytro, however, it is still more likely that the iPhone 5 will debut with the new Sony 8MP camera sensor we wrote about recently," he concludes. Partly because Lytro "is still a relatively bulky technology that isn't at all suited to the ultra-thin trend that the iPhone 5 form factor seems to be moving toward."
If he'd just made that point at the beginning, we'd have been spared another rumor about another rumor.
iPhone 5 Will Be Named... iPhone 5
Must be a slow rumor week over at Beatweek. The Beatweek staff posted a story with the headline "iPhone 5 is sixth generation, but likely to retain '5' moniker."
"If the iPhone 4S is the fifth generation iPhone, then what is the iPhone 5? That's the question for Apple marketing execs to chew over from now until the device's launch later this year, as their upcoming sixth generation smartphone has already been popularly branded 'iPhone 5' even as a handful of skeptics point out that such a moniker would be outside of standard naming conventions."
It's so easy to imagine the anguish of Apple's marketing execs, hands pressed to their heads, moaning, "Oh woe! What are we to do? What will we call it? If we call it 'iPhone 5' all those skeptics will point out that it's outside of standard naming conventions. Oh woe. What would Steve do?"
iPhone 5 Will Have NFC
Power Retail thinks "Rumours That iPhone 5 Will Support NFC Ring True"
And that's because there's actually a foundation in fact, as reported by Power Retail's Campbell Phillips : "Visa confirms it is in discussion with Apple to include NFC technology in the next version of the iPhone, but it may still be months away. There is light at the end of the tunnel after all for iPhone users, Bill Gadja, the Global Head of Mobile Product says."
This is almost shocking : a real person, with a name and a title and company affiliation, offers an opinion.
"I can't tell you when Apple is going to put NFC in the next version of the iPhone," Gadja told business magazine Fast Company, "but we've had discussions with them around the PayWave standard and they've asked to look at our specification and certification process so that when they do decide to do something those lines of communication are open."
iPhone 5 Will Have a Physical Camera Button Because it Really Needs One
Technically speaking, Matthew Panzarino's thoughtful story at The Next Web, "Why the iPhone should have a dedicated physical shutter button" is an argument for the button, not a rumor about it.
But we're shortcutting the iOSphere rumorization process of linking to a post and then extending it: "Will iPhone 5 have shutter button?" and then "iPhone 5 expected to have shutter button" and "Sources say iPhone 5 have shutter button" and finally "iPhone 5 likely to have shutter button."
In any case, Panzarino, the news and Apple editor for TNW, clearly has given this some thought. His basic argument is that the current position of the rear-facing camera and the use of the volume button as the shutter button makes for an awkward, unstable and suboptimal shooting experience.
Instead, he wants a grip that looks like (this) where an index finger can just naturally press a dedicated button, and the grip keeps the whole thing steady. His hope: Apple is positioning the iPhone as your primary everyday camera, and the dedicated physical shutter button will be a big step toward that goal. And he notes the new Nokia 800 has come to the same conclusion.
READ ALSO: 8 Reasons to Buy the iPhone 5c
What else do you want to read? Let us know in the comments.
*by andreascy*
