So if you have read my blogs in the past you know there is ramp id speculation on when the iPhone 5 is coming out. Some thought it could be as early as August but most reasonable people have thought September. Well it looks like it is closer to the end of September. Now what makes me say that? Well it has been found that AT&T is doing a vacation blackout on all AT&T employees for the last two weeks of September. Now I have never kept my ear to the ground about this stuff really, mainly due to the fact that I never wrote blogs for technology before so I haven’t been at the pulse of the iPhone 4 launch so I am not sure if this is common practice for a huge phone release. Now let us be clear there are no confirmations on when the phone is actually coming. But it is looking awful close to an end of September launch.
The Verizon Wireless LTE Phones run on the new 4G network and if you wanted to unlock the phone to put it on an ATT network will not work. They say the phones are going to be on a different frequency and would not be compatible with other networks.
Verizon may be designing its phones to only run on Verizon’s very specific wireless frequency, locking out all other possible carriers. Verizon and AT&T both run their LTE networks in the 700-MHz band. But Verizon’s network is mostly in 746-787MHz, while AT&T’s will be primarily in 704-746MHz. Some Verizon and AT&T spectrum overlaps in an area called the “lower B block,” but not much. Verizon could build its phones to exclude AT&T’s frequencies, and vice versa.
Personally I am not a big fan of unlocking phones and bringing it to other networks and with the iPhone on both major networks and Android making all types of phones for both networks I would think the 4G phones are going to be very similar which means unlocking phones really won?t even be truly needed in my opinion.
There have been reports that a Taiwan-based company Pegatron Technology is estimated to have gotten 15 million iPhone 5 orders from Apple. These phones are set to launch in September of 2011.
Due to its collaboration with Apple for iPhone 4, Pegatron, in 2010, considerably expanded its plants, human power and equipment aiming satisfy the orders for 10 million CDMA iPhone 4s; however, since the Apple’s CDMA iPhone 4 sales were lower than expected in the first quarter of 2011, Pegatron shipped less than four million CDMA iPhone 4s, causing the company’s operation rate to drop to only 50% with its gross margin also drop to 1.8% in the quarter.
So now Pegatron can start to utilize its assets again and hopefully the iPhone 5 will not be a bust.
As I wrote in my last blog Apple is gearing up in September to release two new phones, the 4S and the 5. And once again I state this is no surprise with how well the Droid is doing. Doing some reading I came across an article that posted Google?s Android chief Andy Rubin stating that Google is activating about 500,000 droids a day and that is about a 100,000 increase since it?s last announcement in May. This is no doubt due to the surge in tablets that having been running the Google Honeycomb and Gingerbread phone and tablets. So after looking through all the data it looks like Droid is not a fad or laying down to Apple, it is truly the first real iPhone competition and that only means better things for us as consumers.
How the iPhone lovers may rejoice. As the great people at Apple are supposedly releasing 2 new iPhones. From what I have read reports state that Apple is launching not only the iPhone 5 in September but a faster iPhone 4 dubbed the iPhone 4S. This comes as no shock to me. With Android flooding the market with so many different phones with the Google OS on it, there needs to be more push back from Apple and this is the start. There has been much talk about doing updates the iPhone 4 and also making cheaper iPhones to fit others budgets and now it seems all of this is coming to light. The only thing that I truly wonder is if redesigned iPhone 4S will be significantly cheaper than the new iPhone 5. By significant I would hope to see a $200 dollar difference I would think, but is that asking too much of Apple? Will they just lower the price of the 4 by $200 and set the pricing of the 4S and the 5 equal or very close to each other? My thoughts are that you lower the price of the 4 for those who may not be able to afford a decent iPhone and price the 4S just under the 5. From what I have read the 5 is going to be so vastly different it would be foolish for Apple to price them the same. I can’t wait to hear the pricing structures for these phones and if the 4S and the 5 will be on the Verizon LTE.
So from what I have been reading from tons of different sources, the iPhone 5 is going to be much different than previous iPhones. The phone whose launch is primed for September is going to have a much stronger chip and is going to have a much more advanced camera. The phone is said to have the A5 processor which is actually a stronger chip than what is in the iPad 2. The camera is said to be 8 megapixels which is up by 5 from the iPhone 4. The phone is also said to run on the new iOS 5 which was seen at the developer?s conference earlier this month. With Android gaining much needed ground on Apple, this phone will have to have some drastic changes to make people want to switch. Now that you can go to either AT&T or Verizon for iPhones expanding their market will help slow down the Android surge, but for how long?
