Apple Event for iPhone 5 announcement on October 4th | Hacker News Reader

Apple Event for iPhone 5 announcement on October 4th

allthingsd.com

118 pointsrogerjin76 comments

Expected: A5 CPU, higher spec CMOS camera. Let's hope it has larger screen, longer battery life, Bluetooth 4, faster 801n. Or maybe NFC chip for wallet type application? I suspect Square people already has some insight.

Its more than iPhone 5 event: iOS 5, iCloud, new iPod touch, new iPod refreshes or even new Apple TV.

Updated: Not sure why its voted down. I don't work for Apple.

I think there will be MacBook Pro bumps too. Although I hear the MBP redesign is now pushed back to 2012, unfortunately.

I read similar rumors on MacRumors.

A shame but maybe the new MBP in 2012 will incorporate Ivy Bridge.

They could already use the new 2760QM, 2860QM and 2960XM CPUs. It seems they are ~ 15% stronger http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Intel-Sandy-Bridge-Core-...

I don't think they'll muddy the waters with that at an iPhone / iOS launch event. MBP refreshes would either distract from the iPhone or be ignored, neither are something that Apple would want.

Refreshes have frequently gone out in the past without any sort of event and I'd guess that this would be the case this time.

Yeah good call.

They will probably come out this Tuesday the 27th with an announcement on the website.

the rumours this summer were pretty confident of not just a spec bump but a new air-like design for the next iteration of mbp. i'm sure it'll get it's own event.

didn't they just do an mbp refresh this year?

I would trade all of those features for a case design that didn't require me to use a cover without shattering the screen and/or back. I had dropped my 3G/3GS dozens of times with just some scuffs- I've cracked the screen or back on my iPhone 4 thrice :(

I cracked my 3G screen with as much ease as I cracked my 4, unfortunately.

did you get a new one each time?

I've dropped my caseless iPhone 4 on sidewalks and other hard surfaces a handful of times. It's gotten dinged up, but nothing's cracked.

I have dropped my iPhone on tiles at work without scratching the screen. But in saying that, i've seen others at work crack their screen the same way. Just luck I guess

Okay here's my prediction from last year, maybe this time I'll be right:

Translucent Home-Button (maybe out of glass).

Contains multiple color LEDs for notification system. If you get an email your Home-Button 'pulses' green and so on.

Unlikely, but ambient visual notification is on my wishlist as well.

If Apple does implement it, my guess is a single-color, white LED backlighting the roundrect label on the home button. "Pulse home button" becomes an additional on/off switch for each app's notifications in Notification Center.

Apple does have patents for it already: http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2011/04/apple-bl...

So it's not entirely out of the question.

hopefully they'll do away with glass face that shutters from 1 foot drops on the sidewalk.

I hope they don't, because that glass face has been far better to use than any other smartphone I've encountered.

I wonder what the cost increase would be of making it from pyrex or polycarbonate. It definitely wouldn't be a very Apple thing to do, but it would be nice.

My glasses are scratch-resistant polycarb and they're scratched all to hell. The aluminosilicate glass on the iPhone 4 is supposed to be stronger and more shatter resistant than Pyrex.

I highly doubt there will be a larger screen. They won't force developers to code for another screen resolution and they won't want to lose the retina.

That or they move more towards the resolution independency thats been around since Tiger.

Think scaleable vector graphics vs pixel. But we'll see.

There would have been signs of that in the iOS 5 SDK betas, if it were going to happen.

I'm guessing the screen resulation will stay the same, just put on a larger screen.

But, this creates a smaller DPI and kind of ruins the retina display.

The current resolution is 326 PPI. I would imagine as long as they stay above 300 they will be kosher.

I agree with you. I think what people are thinking as a 'larger' screen is really Apple shrinking the phone around the current screen. Apple is crazy about thin and small and I'm sure they want the iPhone to be more like the iTouch if possible.

> larger screen

Highly unlikely. They couldn't make it much bigger without either making it uncomfortably close to the device border, or making the device bigger.

> longer battery life

Quite likely. The iPad 2 has better battery life than the original iPad, with a very similar battery. They might be able to get in a process shrink for the iPhone 5, too.

> faster 801n

As I understand it, this would require multiple antennae, so probably not likely for space reasons.

Still unconfirmed, I won't believe it until I see the invitations posted everywhere... because they will be posted EVERYWHERE

Paczkowski is well-respected and is a reliable source. If he's saying it with certainty then there's an extreme likelihood it is true.

It will be interesting to see how Cook performs since his style is very low-key compared to Jobs. There is no doubt Schiller, Forstall, Ive and Cue will be there to lend assistance.

It's extremely likely that there is a plan for an event on this date at this time. But since it hasn't been announced, it's also quite possible the date will slip, because they can let the date slip if they wish. So it can be both a reliably sourced fact and something that might not happen. Fun!

This is total speculation, and probably easily explainable by any number of things, but: I bought the iPhone 4 the day it came out, subsidized price. I just called *639# to check my upgrade status, and the message says I'm not eligible for a full upgrade now, but "may qualify on 11/25/2011". That isn't any sort of upgrade anniversary for me - at least, I don't think it is - so that's an interesting date.

Mine says 4/21/2012, so I wouldn't read too much into it.

mine says 03/07/2012

Sometimes the upgrade date can be moved up if you pay a lot per month because of a larger plan, unlimited sms/data, etc. You pay off your subsidization quicker.

Ah, that could be it. My girlfriend is on my plan as well, so I'm paying a bit more than your average customer.

Yes-- i pay $250/mo on my plan (international data & etc) and also bought the iPhone4 subsidized day 1, and my message says I am eligible for an upgrade now.

Maybe that is the date other carriers get it?

Mine says "As a valued customer, we can offer you an upgrade with a new 2-yr commitment and an $18 upgrade fee". I bought my iPhone 4 the day it came out. I'm on a family plan.

I doubt it's that significant, as this stuff varies dramatically by telco around the world. 12 months is standard here, for instance, and I believe it's often _3 years_ in Canada.

By most accounts the iPhone 5 will not have LTE. That's going to sting with Verizon customers in the United States. While it will probably support HSPA+ on AT&T which is already decently fast, Verizon CDMA is direly slow.

It will be a hard sell to get Verizon customers to pass up LTE for the next two years when there are already a few really good Android phones with LTE and most major cities have LTE coverage right now. Not to mention the many more cities will have LTE in just a few months.

I suppose that is just a sacrifice Apple will have to make. It will not matter for AT&T or most of its other carriers around the world.

Plenty of iPhone 1 customers gave up 3G. The phone landscape has certainly changed, but I don't see it as that hard a sell.

Plenty of iPhone customers also give 3G by using the device on T-Mobile. There aren't that many of them though compared to the number of people who switched to AT&T (or Verizon) just as there weren't that many people who bought the iPhone 1.

iPhone 1 sold pretty phenomenally considering it was a $600 phone, lacked 3G, etc. T-Mobile numbers are going to be dramatically depressed by having to buy unsubsidized and break the carrier lock.

I am one of them. I've got my phone jail broken and on T-Mobile's network so that I don't have to deal with AT&T (unfortunately that is going away).

The EDGE speeds are not half bad actually, when browsing on the iPhone itself they are a tad slow, but over bluetooth to my iPad for example I notice it slightly, but it doesn't really bother me.

Very similar problem at the time, actually; UMTS chipsets had terrible battery life, to the point where Nokia actually made some of its Symbian devices in otherwise identical GPRS and UMTS versions.

I'm a very technology-focused individual, and yet, I only have a passing awareness of what LTE is or why I should care about it. I'm happy enough with 3G as-is, and I'd actually want faster mobile processors before I wanted more bandwidth.

If I'm unfamiliar and ambivalent, I really doubt the public at large is going to even notice.

I'm in the same boat. EDGE speeds were painfully slow, but 3G is more than good enough.

Unless you're streaming from Netflix or downloading large files, I don't think LTE will make much of a difference to the vast majority of consumers.

Netflix streams pretty well over 3G, at least to an iPhone (I would think the quality would be more noticeably ugly on an iPad).

I'm with you. I think the main people who are all over LTE are those that want to replace their hard lines with cell. The problem is that the carriers are going to cap and charge big money for LTE so using it as a primary connection is likely not going to be cost effective.

On a list of customer wishes, I don't think that LTE is even in the top five. This doesn't necessarily mean that competitors are lacking in those areas compared to Apple. I could argue that iCloud, and the backing up of application data, is more important.

For all of what is being said, no one really knows anything which makes the point moot.

I had a Droid on Verizon for about a year and a half, and I definitely wouldn't call it "direly slow". I'm now on AT&T with an iPhone, and it feels to be about the same speed as Verizon was.

I agree with the sentiment, but to play devil's advocate:

Last quarter Verizon had a couple LTE Android handsets. They sold 1.2M LTE devices (both handsets and modems) while they sold 2.3M iPhones. The iPhone 5 will be coming 1-2 quarters later, but a lack of LTE might not be as big a deal for the majority of users as it is for, well, people who read this site. Verizon should be posting third quarter numbers in a month so we'll see if LTE has taken off in device sales since then.

Likewise, many users might appreciate the battery life of not having LTE. I don't like not having the latest technology or the best processor. However, I know that in my laptop my quality of using it would be better served by lower temperatures than the faster processor that I have. Likewise, I know that I would be better served by a longer battery life than faster web access on my phone (again, a personal statement not necessarily applicable to you). Just as it is a hard sell to get a phone that won't have the new technology and be stuck with it for 2 years, it's also a hard sell to get a device with significantly reduced battery life knowing that batteries will lose a good bit of capacity over those two years. And which is going to be more meaningful to your usage? It isn't a rhetorical question as users have different usage patterns.

Frankly, it's a little surprising to me that Apple has waited until October to release an update. I understood why a June/July update wouldn't come with LTE. The chipsets that would offer decent battery life were a good 6-9 months out. However, the Qualcomm MDM9615 (which people have been thinking would be the chipset for the first LTE iPhone) is going to be shipping in samples in "late 2011" and volume in early 2012. That makes the timing a bit harsh. Will this iPhone have a lifespan of 6 months after the last one lasted 15 months? I don't think Apple can wait until October 2012 for an LTE iPhone given that better chipsets are coming soon.

You never know what Apple can pull off. With their cash on hand and chip design abilities, it's possible that it will include LTE. While I don't think the current Verizon LTE lineup offers the size/battery life that Apple would demand to go LTE, the chipsets that would allow that are too close for Apple to be releasing an iPhone that will last an entire year. I can see a non-LTE iPhone selling well through 1Q2012 and not costing Apple too much in terms of marketshare. At the same time, I think a non-LTE iPhone would start becoming a hard sell before the 4th quarter of 2012 (a year from this October).

It's why I'm surprised that Apple didn't release a new iPhone on its normal schedule. A non-LTE iPhone then could have been replaced by an LTE iPhone in the March-July 2012 period and not made those who bought the 2011 iPhone feel like they didn't get at least close to a year before it was replaced.

I think the wait until Oct is basically and acknowledgment the the iPod / Music event doesn't have the importance it once had so rolling the iPhone into that makes sense.

Also, I wonder if putting the current iPad processor into a phone means that this will be the new cycle.

All of the Android LTE phones have user replaceable batteries. If the battery loses capacity they can easily be replaced at decent prices which makes your point moot.

Actually replaceable batteries don't make the point moot at all. I certainly don't want to have to carry around spare batteries just so I can use LTE. If LTE is as hard on battery life as suggested, that makes it a very real problem regardless if I can carry around spares.

demand for the iPad 2 made the iPhone5 components (A5 chip) in short supply. I'm guessing the phone design has been finished, and they just were waiting for the supply of components to get better.

>By most accounts

Fallacy--appeal to anonymous authority. Whose accounts? The people who get paid based on page views?

>It will be a hard sell to get Verizon customers to pass up LTE

Again a fallacious argument and appeal to anonymous authority. Do most customers even know what LTE is AND do they care about it? Is it really a motivating factor in purchasing a phone and what evidence do we have of this?

I have a Verizon Thunderbolt, and the battery life absolutely sucks compared to the iPhone 4. AnandTech did a great comparison [1]. The other 3 phones on their LTE lineup are all huge too, with equally bad battery life (maybe with the exception of the new Droid Bionic, which some reviews say has OK battery life but still nowhere near the iPhone 4).

The other dimension besides battery life is size, and all their LTE phones are pretty big size-wise. My Thunderbolt is huge compared to my old Nexus One or my wife's iPhone 4. I don't know if the bigger screen is now what Android manufacturers feel the market wants, but the thing is fairly thick too, and I imagine that's due to having to pack in all the LTE guts.

I think the iPhone, even with 3G, can still hold its own given both the major size and battery life advantages it has.

[1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/4240/htc-thunderbolt-review-fi...

Wow, hadn't realised it was THAT bad. That's unusable, surely?

It's pretty awful in the stock configuration, at least unless you disable LTE (in which case why did you buy an LTE phone?) or root it and use SetCPU.

Honestly, it's BS that you need to either root the device or disable its flagship feature to get acceptable battery life out of it. It's annoying enough that depending on what the new iPhone looks like, I'm tempted to bite the bullet and pay full price for it since I'm not eligible for an upgrade.

IMO LTE isn't that big of a deal. Fast is ok, but getting hosed by the carriers for the privilege of using it is not so ok.

If I were Apple, I would be focusing on diversifying the carrier portfolios to gain leverage over the vendors for a good data plan. If Sprint is willing to provide an acceptable LTE plan, give them exclusivity, and to hell with VZ and AT&T.

Between caps, higher prices, and the poor battery life of the first generation of LTE devices, the US carriers have done a really good job making LTE less appealing. I really don't want to pay more to get 4G (up to $10/month for some carriers) when I can't actually use it for more than an hour or so a month at full speed and will be penalized on a daily basis with reduced battery life. I have no 4G coverage here so I will be paying (up to) $10 more a month for absolutely nothing. Pass.

>I really don't want to pay more to get 4G (up to $10/month for some carriers)

What carriers in the US do that? Verizon has no surcharge for LTE.

Sprint's $10 surcharge started out as a surchage on WiMax phones, but is now a surcharge on any smartphone regardless of what radio it's got.

It's hard to see how it _could_ have LTE without severely hurting battery life (a big no-no), with current chipsets. And yep, it really doesn't matter that much; in most countries HSPA+ is of far more interest for the time being, and I assume it'll have that. Verizon is a pretty small slice of the iPhone market.

Personally, I feel product announcements should be made by the head of the team that developed the product in the company. That's what Google does, for example.

It gives some well deserved spotlight to that person for their hard work.

It also prevents the company from developing an image that it is entirely dependent on one person for all it's product development, be it true or not.

Without wanting to turn this into a Google Apple war, I'm not sure Google can really teach Apple too much about media launches. Whatever you think of Apple, they do launches very very well and I'm not sure they'd think they should be taking anything out of Google's playbook on this one.

It's a media event, you use it for maximum media impact, not thanking the staff. If the guy who headed that team is the best person for the job then you give it to him, if he's not then you don't.

> Personally, I feel product announcements should be made by the head of the team that developed the product in the company. That's what Google does, for example.

At Apple, the head of the team for any major product release is effectively the CEO.

Do you speak from experience? Or from what you've gathered from various media? I ask b/c I've heard otherwise (especially during the last years of Jobs's tenure as CEO).

I speak based on the fact that every profile of Steve Jobs has been consistent on the fact that he was usually involved in even minor details on products they release.

AllThingsD has interesting points to make here; I wish they would write with proper grammar.

Also, I hate when they say "according to sources". What sources?! At least macrumors states exactly where they get their info from.

Cue the chorus of "Finally"…

Oh do lighten up folks :)

Hopefully they'll ditch the external antennas so you can actually make a phone call no matter how "incorrectly" you hold the phone.

You must've missed the videos of BlackBerry and HTC phones doing the same thing.

I'm still hoping for a new Performa… (like they say, hoping for a miracle, but preparing for a Hackintosh)

Why the downvotes? Am I the only one missing a somewhat expandable desktop Mac without an integrated display, but below the requirements / costs of an Mac Pro?

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