While the Samsung Galaxy S3 has been made official and with it confirming its specs and features, it isn’t so straight forward here in the US. Just like with the first-generation and second-generation Samsung Galaxy S models, fans here in the US will need to wait for the individual carrier variants to be announced, which will differ from the original Galaxy S3.
iPhone 5 could beat Samsung Galaxy S3 to stores here in the US
Samsung for one has confirmed that the Samsung Galaxy S3 will go on sale in parts of Europe by the end of this month. This coincidentally ties in with the release of the Samsung Galaxy S2 last year which also hit stores in some parts of the globe in May. So if anything, Samsung appears to be right on schedule. However Samsung Mobile USA has announced that we can expect the first US variants of the Galaxy S3 to arrive in the summer.
The summer of 2012 as we know it officially starts on June 20 and runs deep into September. Knowing Samsung, if summer is targeted then we can expect it later than sooner (in other words, a June US release date in stores is out of the question).
Simultaneously, Apple has gone ahead and officially confirmed that WWDC 2012 will begin on June 11. WWDC of course has been the location of every iPhone launch to date except for the iPhone 4S which was believed to have been held up due to production issues. So it may not be too crazy to assume that the iPhone 5 will follow tradition and launch at WWDC 2012 as well. Additionally, CultOfMac reports that Walmart has dropped the price of the iPhone 4S from $188 to $114. This come in just over a month before WWDC 2012 kicks off, which surprisingly also happened last year whe when Walmart dropped the price of the iPhone 4 exactly one month before the 4S launched.
Now one thing we like about Apple is how fast the iPhone rolls out in the US after it has officially been announced. Usually we see Apple put the device up for pre-order within a week of its debut, followed by shipping in the following week or so. In other words, if the iPhone 5 debuts at WWDC 2012, then we can expect to see it in stores before the month is up.
With a few weeks more to go, we may see what Apple has planned for WWDC 2012. As for the Samsung Galaxy S3, we’re still waiting on Samsung Mobile US or US carriers to give a more firm release date than just ‘summer’. We’ll keep you posted as more develops.
