Wednesday, August 10, 2011

The iPhone 5 News Blog News Feed

The iPhone 5 News Blog News Feed

What’s In A Name? The New iPhone’s Capabilities Are More Important Than What It’s Called

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 10:33 AM PDT


iphone 5“What’s in a name?” quoth the Bard, interlocuting through his character Juliet Capulet (Romeo and Juliet Act 2 Scene 2),”That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” Or not, according to some frustrated iPhone fans. I find myself more than a little bemused at the level of evident angst, and even hostility being expressed over what the next iPhone release will be called.

Personally, it matters more to me what the new iPhone will do than what it’s named. I have no strong opinion one way or the other whether it will be an iPhone 5, an iPhone 4S, an iPhone 4GS, or ???. I don’t really have a dog in this fight. There have been strong arguments made on either side of the upgraded iPhone 4 versus clean slate iPhone5 debate, but none have been compellingly conclusive.

I do think it would probably be a marketing blunder now for Apple to not call the new phone, which virtually everyone is agreed will be coming before mid-October, anything but iPhone 5 for reasons alluded to above, but it’s conceivable that it might not be.

For example, dvice.com blogger Stewart Wolpin argued this week in an essay entitled “Why the iPhone 5 won’t be called the iPhone 5,” that the most pertinent question is whether the new Apple phone will run on AT&T’s not-scintillating 3G network, or via the souped-up HSPA+ 4G. Wolpin is of the opinion that LTE is a non-starter for this round, and maintains that if it’s HSPA+ 4G Apple has a naming problem — to wit: “if it’s a 4G phone, will it be the 4G iPhone 5?” Wolpin contends that Apple may be many things, but stupid enough to cumber its flagship product with a confusing name isn’t one of them, and he thinks that rules out iPhone 5 for the fall intro.

The likely candidates, if Wolpin is right, would be iPhone 4S or perhaps iPhone 4G, or even iPhone 4GS might be appropriate. I don’t know whether Wolpin’s argument will hold up, but it seems logical that the name should have some correspondence with the function. It’s the function that’s of paramount importance. Consequently, a counter-argument might be that since the new iPhone will come with iOS 5 loaded up – iPhone 5 would be relevantly appropriate from that angle, although I think it’s a weaker case, since OS versions often deviate from hardware model designations.



Meanwhile, Appleinsider’s Daniel Eran Dilger says that Google is reportedly scrambling to deliver Android 4, whimsically code-named “Ice Cream Sandwich,” for both smartphones and tablets before iPhone 5 (or whatever) ships, suggesting that Google hopes to incorporate Android 3.0 Honeycomb’s “holographic 3D” tablet interface elements into its Gingerbread smartphone release, creating a unified version of Android’s APIs that works the same across all devices designed for the new OS version. Oy! All that confection-based nomenclature is more stickily, gooily confusing than the iPhone’s alphanumerics.

Anyway, the takeaway is that Google hopes to have ammunition available to counter potential customers with service contracts up for renewal having the iPhone 5 (or whatever) to drool over. That’s not a paranoid concern for Google. As was widely reported last week, a (very) small survey by Piper Jaffray analyst and Apple-watcher Gene Munster found 64 percent of Verizon user respondents planning to buy an iPhone for their next smartphone, and 74 percent of those saying they’re waiting for iPhone 5, and just over half of AT&T users who plan to buy a new iPhone also waiting for iPhone 5.

Dilger cites Android Head of Engineering Mike Claren referring to the upcoming “Ice Cream Sandwich” OS as the company's "most ambitious release to date,” and speculation that it will start shipping as early as October, which sounds like the most likely guess for when the iPhone 5 (or whatever) will land.

Will the Next iPhone Be Called “iPhone 5?” Vote Now!

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 09:00 AM PDT


With the name of the next iPhone in question, iPhone users can now weigh in on whether the next iPhone will indeed be the iPhone 5, iPhone 4s, iPhone 4Gs, a combination of all of these, or something else entirely!

We’ve put up some of the most popular names bandied about in the iPhone 5 rumor mill over the past few months, plus the amorphous “Something else entirely!” option. Be sure to vote below.

But vote wisely! Remember that what we’re voting on here isn’t just the name of the next iPhone. We’re also voting on the prevailing features of the next iPhone as well. For example, a vote for “iPhone 5″ implies an entirely revamped iPhone, whereas a vote for “iPhone 4s” denotes a refresh. “iPhone 4Gs” might imply a 4G iPhone in the iPhone 4 chassis, but with the A5 chip. Feel free to expound upon your vote in the comments below.



Will the Next iPhone Be Called "iPhone 5?" Vote Now!

iPhone 5
iPhone 4s
iPhone 4Gs
iPhone 5 & iPhone 4s
Something Else Entirely!


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Video Of Purported iPhone 5 Landing Page on Swiss Apple.com Fails To Impress

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 07:09 AM PDT


A popular video is gaining traction on YouTube from some who claims to have uncovered an iPhone 5 landing page on the Swiss version of the iPhone 5. Does it pass the smell test?

The iPhone 5 News Blog‘s coverage of the impending iPhone release took an interesting turn yesterday with the revelation from a reputable source that iPhone case manufacturers in Asia are preparing for an “iPhone 4Gs” that will be based on the same basic form factor of the iPhone 4. This news came as a jolt to the community of iPhone 5′ers who frequent the Blog, since the prevailing notion both among the writers and commenters has been that Apple would be hard-pressed not to make sure that the next iPhone is indeed a revamped model with the number “5″ after its name.

This news yesterday trumped an interesting tip that we received from Dan over at NextiPhoneNews, who posted and commented on a new YouTube video what allegedly depicts an iPhone 5 landing page on the Swiss version of Apple.com. Dan explains that “The guy goes to the iPhone page, and then he shows some hidden links below the normal ones. Once he clicks on one of them he's redirected to the iPhone 5 page, which includes images, specifications and so on.” You can check out the rest of Dan’s article here.


If you take a look at the video and the story, however, there are some major issues with both that raise doubts to its validity. First off, all of the images of the iPhone 5 on the landing page look to be solidworks renderings — not real photos of the iPhone 5. It would stand to reason that the marketing/creative department has already gotten their hands on the next iPhone and have done a comprehensive photo session with it — even if all they have to work with is a dummy iPhone shell with no real “guts” inside of it. As we speak, Apple is most likely putting together ads, web pages, packaging graphics, and other marketing content for its eventual release. Just take a look at the profound difference in quality from the iPhone 4 graphic to the iPhone 5 one — it’s actually laughable.

Second, while the video maker claims to have discovered hidden links in the navigation of the Swiss Apple.com website, those links are nowhere to be found now, as Dan reports in his piece as well. Further to this point, I personally checked all of the Apple.com websites a few weeks ago by using an xml sitemap generator to see all of the published pages of the Apple websites, and there was nothing mentioning the iPhone 5. In point of fact, hiding white-on-white “hidden” links is a “black hat” practice for webmasters that can lead to stiff penalties by Google in their search rankings. No webmaster at Apple would ever risk such a method for working on an up-coming web page for risk of Google or chowderhead video makers discovering it.

Third, did you know that anyone can easily copy the source code of any webpage and re-create it? Even someone with virtually no web building skills can go to a web page, view its source code, copy it, and paste it into an HTML editor. It would stand to reason that someone with web skills could very well recreate all of apple.com, complete with their own bogus iPhone 5 landing page.

bogus iphone 5 landing page on swiss apple.com website

As shown in commenter Core 2's screenshot above, "the local file path (///users/peter/desktop/) on the computer in the URL at 0:00 start time of the video is pretty sloppy." Thanks, Core2!

Chances are, Apple’s talented web team has all of their new iPhone content on an incredibly secure server, well away from prying eyes, and it is filled with real photos of the next iPhone sprawled across them.

Why Rumors Like This Make the iPhone 5 Seem Unlikely

The debate over whether the next iPhone will be the iPhone 5 or iPhone 4Gs over the past days has centered on what seems logical to the informed iPhone user versus a rumor from a well-placed source that the next iPhone will remain in the body of the iPhone 4. I have agreed in comments with iPhone 5′ers that indeed it makes much more sense that Apple will move forward with a revolutionary iPhone 5 than a refreshed iPhone 4, but I cannot discount the insider’s perspective of a top consumer electronics accessories in Asia.

But when fodder like this purported iPhone 5 video surfaces, it doesn’t help the case of the iPhone 5: it discredits the promise of an iPhone 5 in light of the recent iPhone 4Gs rumors. Consider it from this perspective: what is more plausible — that iPhone case designers are getting word out of the Apple components suppliers that the next iPhone will retain the iPhone 4′s form factor, and are moving ahead with iPhone case designs based on that model, or that iPhone case designers have gotten their hands on the actual specs of the iPhone 5 and are making advance iPhone 5 cases based on them?

. . . or, that Gizmodo got their hands on a “clone” of the iPhone 5? Or, that Apple accidentally put up photos of the iPhone 5 on their Swiss website?

. . . or, that some guy was photographed with an iPhone 5 playing Angry Birds on the subway?

. . . or, that a French guy on an iPhone forum posted a photo of a blurry iPhone 5?

The plurality of iPhone 5 sightings — including this new video — add up to little more than palpable skepticism about the iPhone 5, since all of it is such dreck. It’s sad to say, but for my part, the most credible piece of information I have ever read or received about the next iPhone suggests it’ll be an iPhone 4 refresh — even though it goes against all of the prevailing logic.

Let’s hope it’s erroneous.

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