That's right, you read the headline correctly. It would seem as if Apple will not be releasing the iPhone 5 until 2012!
The reason, you ask? The reason is that Apple will be releasing the iPhone 4G in 2011. Everybody who is calling Apple's next iPhone the iPhone 5 is surely incorrect. Apple takes great pride in coming up with names for its products, and they will not make the mistake of releasing the iPhone 5 in June 2012.
My proof of this is in the names of Apple's last four smartphones. The iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 4. Diving in a bit deeper, we'll be able to see why apple's next phone will be the iPhone 4G.
The Original iPhone, launched on June 28, 2007, was a big leap from any phone available at the time. But it didn't have any 3G network capability; it could only work on the EDGE (2G) network. Why didn't Apple call it the iPhone 2G then? The answer lay within the fact that the first iPhone was actually horrible at browsing the Internet. Most other phones at that time had 3G networking, so there was no way Apple could have advertised the fact that its phone was behind the current trend.
Then, on July 11, 2008, people lined up all over again for the iPhone 3G. This time around, Apple had managed to include 3G capabilities into its wildly successful phone, and the company named it accordingly. For the original iPhone buyers, this was a huge selling point to upgrade - so what better way to advertise than to name the phone with one of its features?
Less than a year later on June 19, 2009, the iPhone 3GS was released. Steve Jobs had been on a medical leave during the previous year, so the phone didn't turn out so well. It was just a minor specification bump. A small change of the internals couldn't warrant a big name change. So Apple just tacked on the letter S to the end of the iPhone 3G's name. Besides, the only improvement the iPhone 3GS had was speed.
Then, after a leaked phone got out, the iPhone 4 was released on June 24, 2010. Everything about the new iPhone 4 was changed. The design, the screen, the specifications were all new, so obviously Apple had to mark this big change with a big rename. They went from 3GS to 4. It was nice and simple now - what did you expect... iPhone 3GSX? The problem for Apple was that other manufacturers were starting to roll out 4G phones. Did the iPhone 4 have 4G networking? No.
But this year, manufacturers and carriers alike are really pushing 4G. Download a song in 4 seconds, browse the web as fast as at home, video chat; 4G is really the future. To remain competitive, Apple has to release a 4G iPhone. And what did we learn from the iPhone 3G? An upgrade in network speed means a name to reflect it... Therefore we come to the iPhone 4G.
Even if the tech giant decides not to go with 4G networking this year, there won't be an iPhone 5. Why? If the next iPhone doesn't have 4G browsing speeds, do you think they'll actually decrease the number in the name of the phone? Going from 5 to 4G would seem like moving backwards.
So after looking closely at history, and ahead to where the iPhone is going, there is only one logical name choice. The iPhone 4G. Sorry, but the iPhone 5 still has at least another year before it comes out.
