The
worst-kept secret in the consumer electronics industry is finally about to
become the biggest smartphone launch of the year — Apple is unveiling the iPhone 5 on Wednesday.
We’ve seen it in
photos, we’ve seen it on
video, and now we’ll finally see the full picture painted on stage
in San Francisco later this week. Estimates suggest Apple could
sell 5.5 million or more iPhone 5 handsets during its debut weekend,
and everyone seems to agree it will be the biggest
consumer electronics launch of all time. There are plenty of
things Apple’s next-generation iPhone won’t fix, but let’s take a
look at what we can expect from the iPhone 5.
A brand new design. The
iPhone 5 might resemble the iPhone 4 and 4S in terms of broad-stroke design and
styling, but compressing the iPhone’s guts into a 7.6-millimeter case was no
easy task. The entire iPhone 5 will be reworked and will feature a sleek new
unibody aluminum case, a modified antenna design and a variety of
new internal components.
A
bigger display. As the line
between smartphones and flat-panel televisions continues to blur,
Apple conceded to an extent this year and the new iPhone will sport a larger
4-inch display panel. Will the new bigger display actually have a
positive impact on the user experience? We’re not so
sure.
New mini dock connector.
Apple has been widely criticized for using a proprietary dock connector and the
company is finally ready to make a change — to a new
proprietary dock connector. The iPhone 5′s slim profile would have
been impossible to achieve with the old connector, so get ready to toss the
docks and stands from your old iPhone into the trash. Chargers and some other
access should continue to work thanks to an adapter from Apple, however.
4G LTE. It looks like the
latest generation of LTE components are finally in a place where Apple can
implement them without sacrificing too much in terms of battery life. As BGR reported
this past July and The Wall
Street Journal reported on Sunday, the iPhone 5 will include LTE
connectivity.
More RAM. More memory
means better performance and as we
reported in July, Apple will finally double the RAM in its
next-generation iPhone to 1GB.
Better processor. As is
only logical, Apple’s next iPhone will include a more powerful processor. It is
unclear if it will be the rumored quad-core A6 chipset or some modified version
of Apple’s dual-core A5X SoC from the iPad,
but it should be a solid upgrade either way.
Nano-SIM support. Apple’s
influence on the global mobile industry will again be illustrated when it
launches the iPhone 5 with nano-SIM support. The industry will proceed to adopt
the new nano-SIMs, and it will be the second time in as many years that Apple
forced a radical shift in the SIM card standard after it remained
unchanged for nearly 20 years.
NFC? Near-field
Communication in the next-generation iPhone seemed all but
certain a few weeks ago but recent rumors suggest we might have to
wait until next year for Apple’s iPhone to get NFC.
Launch timing. Rumors have
varied but the most solid reports to date suggest that iPhone 5
preorder availability will begin on Wednesday this week, the same
day Apple unveils the new iPhone, and we can reportedly expect the iPhone 5 to
launch on September 21st.
What
else can we look forward to on Wednesday? Recent rumors point to new iPods
and although it seems odd that Apple would clutter up its mobile event with new
PCs, rumors point to a September or
October launch for new iMacs and a new 13-inch MacBook Pro with a Retina
display. As such, we may see them announced this week as well.
Be
sure to tune in at 1:00 p.m. EDT, 10:00 a.m. PDT this Wednesday for all the
news as it breaks. Now, is everyone ready for some iPhone 5S rumors?
From BGR.com
