Thursday, May 12, 2011

The iPhone 5 News Blog News Feed

The iPhone 5 News Blog News Feed

Christmas-if-You’re-Lucky iPhone 5 Launch? – Say It Isn’t So, But Apple Obviously Wants You To Buy A White iPhone 4 Now

Posted: 12 May 2011 04:11 AM PDT


iPhone 5 News Blog lead columnist Charles Moore reports on prognostications of a very late 2011 iPhone 5 release, and how Apple’s strategy may be to squeeze as many iPhone 4 sales out of consumer as possible in fiscal year 2011.

U.K -based CNET Crave’s Andy Merrett reports via MacRumors that an unnamed AT&T customer care representative has purportedly leaked insider information that an iPhone 5 June or July launch is a no-go. Merrett himself thinks September is the likely U.S. market release month for the next-gen Apple phone (as do we), based on another rumor published by Reuters and attributed to another unnamed source with contacts in the iPhone supply chain.

However, Merrett wonders how long U.K. customers will have to wait after the iPhone 5 makes its U.S. retail debut, wistfully pondering the probabilities of Apple doing “the decent thing” and launching the iPhone 5 on both sides of the Atlantic simultaneously, and fretting about whether ongoing component supply shortages and extreme pent-up demand in America will relegate Brit customers to a “Christmas-if-you’re-lucky” iPhone 5 launch date across the pond.

Hope it’s not that long, either there or on this side of the Atlantic.

In the meantime, BeatWeek notes that those who skipped the iPhone 4 in 2010 or the Verizon iPhone in early 2011 in anticipation of being able to buy an iPhone 5 in June are now left scratching their heads, trying to figure out whether passing on the iPhone 4 was a mistake and if belatedly taking the plunge now would be a sensible, corrective move or just compound their original (possible) miscalculation. Beatweek observes that this sort of dilemma is characteristic to life as an Apple product user, since Apple typically refuses to discuss future unannounced products except in rare instances when it suits their greater purpose, and has no intention of letting on when the iPhone 5 will be rolled out, consequently leaving it up to the individual user to figure it out for him or her self.

Whenever the iPhone 5 launches, it is BeatWeek’s opinion that Apple wants you to buy an iPhone 4 right now instead of waiting, suggesting that’s why it pre-announced the white iPhone 4 release via Twitter. For that matter, a delay in bringing the iPhone 5 to market is almost certainly why Apple chose to release a white iPhone 4 at all after ten months delay, rather than just including a white variant in the iPhone 5 release. BeatWeek deduces that this is Apple’s way of signaling that the iPhone 5 is going to arrive later than expected, and with June and with the World Wide Developers Conference and the magic month of June just three and four weeks away respectively, they allow that anyone who imagines Apple’s released the white iPhone 4 now, only to have to turn around in a few weeks or a couple months and end-of-life it it that quickly, “is probably naive enough to end up on the wrong end of the buying spectrum one way or the other.” I made a similar observation in this blog several weeks back, to wit that it beggared both logic and credibility that Apple would go to all the trouble and expense of bringing production of the white iPhone online and building up distribution and retail inventories for a flash-in-the-pan production run of a few weeks for the cynical purpose of wringing a bit more money out of the iPhone 4 before putting it out to pasture.

June is surely off the table now. One might also observe that with the iPhone 4 “by far” the top selling device, and even older iPhone 3GSs reportedly still outselling individual competing units from Android handset makers at both AT&T and Verizon according to a new report by Canaccord Genuity technology analyst Michael Walkley, Apple has little incentive to be in a hurry shuffling the version 4 iPhone off into the sunset.

BeatWeek’s guess for the iPhone 5 launch is early September, but they hasten to add that it’s a purely deductive and speculative guess and not based on any hard evidence.

As for the iPhone 4, should you break down and buy one? Lots of people are, especially that sporty new white model, and I agree with BeatWeek that it boils down to whether you now figure you blew it by not buying an iPhone 4 earlier on, especially since reasons why some folks resisted an iPhone 4 purchase, such as the supposed antenna issue and supposed scratching issue turned out to be either grossly exaggerated or to have never existed in the first place, while real issues like the proximity sensor bug, were fixed with software updates, and objections to no Verizon or white iPhone 4s being originally available now moot with subsequent hardware releases. All very well, but are we past the threshold of an iPhone 4 (white or black) being a sensible purchase provided you already have a serviceable smartphone to tide you over for a few more months (hopefully not till Christmas, or as some have lugubriously suggested — even into 2012)?

If you do take the plunge at his late date, skipping the iPhone 5 altogether and waiting for iPhone 6 might turn out to be a logical plan, unless money for frequent phone hardware upgrades is no object.

Charles W. Moore is a columnist for PBCentral and Applelinks, Appletell, and LowEndMac, and an exclusive iPhone news contributor for the iPhone 5 News Blog.