Friday, April 15, 2011

The iPhone 5 News Blog News Feed

The iPhone 5 News Blog News Feed

The Latest News On The White iPhone 4 & Its Impact On The iPhone 5 Release

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 07:49 AM PDT


iPhone 5 News Blog columnist Charles Moore reports on the latest news surrounding the white iPhone 4 and how it may impact the release of the iPhone 5.

It’s not the news a lot of increasingly impatient would-be iPhone 5 upgraders are waiting for or want to hear, but it’s looking like the near-mythological white iPhone 4, originally intended to debut June 2010, and which has been the object of an Ahab-like obsessive quest by some iPhone fans over the past 10 months, is finally going to materialize.

On Wednesday, a tweet from Apple Senior Vice-President of Marketing Phil Schiller affirmed: “The white iPhone will be available this spring (and it is a beauty!),” reiterating a tweet to the same effect Schiller had made in March, which had in turn reiterated an announcement made by Apple in December 2010. On Thursday, Reuters’ Hong Kong-based correspondent Kelvin Soh reported that according to unnamed industry sources, Apple’s far-eastern subcontractors Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd., a division of Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group, have at long last begun production of white iPhone 4s, and Bloomberg News reported this week that AT&T and Verizon would have stock of white iPhones by the end of April.

Actually, the impatient and financially flush can have a white iPhone now from whiteiphone4.com which offers a White iPhone 4 Full Conversion Kit for $259 (pictured).

white iphone kit for iphone 4

So, why is this bad news for folks with their sights set on an iPhone 5? Well, noting concrete, but it seems highly improbable that Apple would have Hon Hai ramping up production of a white variant of the iPhone 4 if it was about to release an iPhone 5 anytime soon, and my deduction is that if the white whale iPhone does materialize over the next couple of weeks as predicted, then the prospects for an iPhone 5 release before fall (or mid-late September, which is technically late summer) at the earliest will be looking slim. As The Register’s Tony Smith noted on Wednesday, Apple be looking to a white iPhone 4 rollout as a way to rekindle interest in the the current model, extending its production lifespan, if the iPhone 5 really won’t be out until late 2011 or even early 2012.

Also on April 13, the Taiwan-based industry-watcher Web journal Digitimes’s Yenting Chen, Daniel Shen, and Steve Shen reported that “Apple has not yet released a production roadmap for iPhone 5 as shipment volumes of iPhone 4 have continued to mount and related suppliers are not yet ready to shift their production lines for new products, according to sources at Taiwan-based touch panel makers… amid growing market speculation saying that Apple will delay the launch of the iPhone 5 until September, or even 2012 because of a shortage of upstream components.”

Mssrs. Chen and Shen x 2 also relate that their unnamed insider sources tell them that Apple has not yet released a production roadmap for iPhone 5, that touch panel shipments for iPhone 4 have remained steady, and that they have not seen a timetable to stop current production in preparation for the next-generation of iPhone, speculating that with demand for the iPhone 4 still strong, Apple may have decided to stick with some incremental upgrades or enhancements of the current version (such as the Verizon variant several months ago and the rumored white iPhone 4 release, as well as perhaps a bargain-basement prices an entry-level iPhone 4 model, and/or adding 4G support with a new 4G LTE chip by Qualcomm when it’s ready) and hold back an iPhone 5 release until its customary June or July time envelope in 2012, while its engineers undertake a major overhaul of the iPhone 5 to resolve some design and component issues. Or not.

The takeaway here is that if Apple releases a white iPhone 4 in the next month or so, the odds of an iPhone 5 announcement at the June World Wide Developer’s Conference, or in July have to logically be considered low, but what do I know?

Looking for more on how the white iPhone 4 will impact the release of the iPhone 5? Read Michael Nace’s opinion piece about it here.

 

 

 

White iPhone 4, Lack Of Components Production Support Late iPhone 5 Release

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 04:00 AM PDT


Ok, Steve: we'll forgive the fact that you dated Kathy Griffin, but don't give us the white iPhone. We want the iPhone 5!

 

With a report indicating that a white iPhone 4 is due out within weeks from both Verizon and AT&T, as well as fresh reports that the iPhone manufacturing plants for the next iPhone remain offline, a late iPhone 5 release is looking increasingly likely. Sorry, folks.

For all of those White iPhone 4 niche blogs out there, today is an exciting day. Well-sourced rumors are now indicating that the long awaited white iPhone 4 is due to arrive within weeks. Geeks-who-simply-must-color-coordinate-all-of-their-gadgets of the world rejoice! Now, your iPhone 4, Xbox 360, and Wii can all happily coexist in electronics feng shui.

For the rest of us who are growing impatient for solid news of an iPhone 5 release, the white iPhone 4 is an ill omen, indeed.

Back in the dog days of the 2010 summer, the prospect of a white iPhone was exciting to hopeful buyers, and rumors have persisted since then that we would be treated to the white variant soon and very soon. First, it was rumored that the white iPhone would available for the 2012 Christmas rush. Then, rumors abounded that Verizon’s iPhone would come in both black and white. All of these rumors, of course, have turned out to be false.

And now, with the white iPhone 4 poised to finally make its debut in late April or early May — about a month or so before when we usually would be expecting the iPhone 5 — it becomes more and more apparent why the white iPhone 4 was being delayed to the market: we’re being thrown a bone.

My feeling on the matter is that the white iPhone is nothing more than yet another way of extending the market lifecycle of the iPhone 4. And that perspective really cannot be argued, since that is exactly why companies like Nintendo and Apple release different-colored consoles and devices after the initial release. Take the Wii, for example: it hasn’t been changed or updated in years; they just keep releasing different colors of it. Simply put: it’s a way of giving the product a secondary sales boost

Or in the case of the iPhone 4, a tertiary sales boost.

Once we get to the imminent release of the white iPhone model, there will have been three sales surges for the iPhone 4: its initial summer 2012 release on AT&T, the Verizon release in early 2011, and now the white iPhone release in the late spring. Is this Apple’s way of taking on the panoply of Droid phones out there — by simply extending the lifecycle of the iPhone 4 to circumvent multiple Droid models?

Or, is it simply a delay tactic?

Let’s imagine that the rumors are true, and there will be no iPhone 5 until the end of the summer into early fall. That means that the only “watershed moment” for Apple between now and then would be the launch of iOS 5 at the WWDC in June. We’ve talked on the blog before about the fact that, with the exception of hardcore tech heads and app developers, iOS 5 will do little to excite the masses if an iPhone 5 isn’t attached to it.

Enter the white iPhone 4, stage left.

The white iPhone gives consumers something that they can actually touch. It’s a tangible product that they can go out and spend hundreds of dollars that they don’t have on. After all, that’s what we’re all looking to do: give Apple our money in exchange for a little piece of their magic.

Which is fine, so long as the magic is something to really get excited about.

If rumors are true and the white iPhone makes it onto the scene for early May, it gives Apple a means of propping up their image as being both busy and prolific, even when we all know that they are not. The iPad 2 was announced at the beginning of March — imagine that Apple will not have a truly new piece of mobile hardware until possibly August, September, or beyond!

At this point, a late iPhone 5 will be a big disappointment, and it remains to be seen if the white iPhone 4 can give Apple enough cover to avoid the letdown.