One of the biggest letdowns last year from Apple was when the iPhone 4S didn’t show up at WWDC 2011. This was a shocker for most (especially investors) since Apple had without fail launched a new iPhone model at the event every year since its inception 4 years ago.
Apple may stick with October for iPhone 5 release date (report)
Now as the New iPad 3 is out of the way, the spotlight is once again on Apple’s upcoming smartphone, collectively dubbed the iPhone 5. So the big question this year is, will the iPhone 5 launch in the summer or will Apple make October the new date for iPhone releases. Unfortunately, analysts believe it is the latter.
A recent quarterly earnings call by Qualcomm has suggested a delayed iPhone 5 release date. According to the report, certain LTE chipsets are seeing a strain in supply which Qualcomm’s Chief Executive Paul Jacobs blames is because “demand went so far ahead of availability that we’ve decided to start spending more money to get more supply as soon as possible.”
Piper Jaffray’s analyst Gene Munster’s has “collectively strewn” a date together based on these reports: “QCOM will likely support an Apple iPhone launch in October. Based on our checks, we believe the design win momentum of QCOM’s 28nm products has been exceptionally strong and a 28nm LTE baseband is likely designed into the next iPhone. … Based on the increased capital spending this year from TSMC and QCOM’s efforts over the last quarter to port its 28nm designs to UMC and probably Global Foundries, we think QCOM will have the capacity to support a Q4 LTE iPhone 5 launch.”
Given that the iPhone 4S launched in October, Munster’s predictions aren’t so much as surprising as they are disappointing. If the iPhone 4S appears to have enough ‘gas in the tank’ to keep propelling sales into October, Apple may not need to rush the release of an iPhone 5. Do you think the iPhone 4S will be able to hold its sales against next-gen smartphones like the HTC One X and upcoming Samsung Galaxy S3 and the Motorola DROID RAZR HD? Sound off in the comments below.
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