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Apple LTE-enabled iPhone Due in 2012, iPhone 4S Preparations for September 2011

Mr Fusion said:
Once again, I'm happy to be on the "even" iPhone upgrade cycle. :)
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I just signed on to AT&T right before their unlimited data plan ended... so I have to wait until 2012 =/

I guess you're on the same boat as me. I like having all the newest toys.. when I can afford them. If I get offered early upgrade.. then I might just take it. (if the new iPhone is THAT good..)
 
ghostlyorb said:
I just signed on to AT&T right before their unlimited data plan ended... so I have to wait until 2012 =/

I guess you're on the same boat as me. I like having all the newest toys.. when I can afford them. If I get offered early upgrade.. then I might just take it. (if the new iPhone is THAT good..)
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At&T has given me early upgrade option every June since the original iPhone, including this year - June 16. Which leads me to believe the next iPhone will be released in June
 
Iphone 5/4s/4gs/delete as appropriate.

I agree with previous posts that the iOS edition will probably indicate the iphone edition, so if it's 5.0 (and not 4. or 4.5 say) then it will be the iPhone 5.

As for LTE or 3G? The LTE chipsets are in their infancy and draw too much juice, the infrastructure in most of the world is non-existent and in the UK even 3G is non-existent or too congested (tried most networks on multiple phones), so Apple would be mad to add LTE to a new iPhone. Most folks upgrade their phones after 18 months to 2 years and by then LTE might be rolling out (in limited places). But if the previous 3G rollout is anything to go by in the UK then forget it until 2015! It's okay for the folks in the few cities in the US who are in LTE enabled areas but that market is peanuts compared to the rest of the world which is a mess of 2g/2.5g/3g/3.5g.

Thunderbolt is different as it's an integral part of Intel's vision for Sandy bridge, doesn't really use much more power in a device that is mains powered or has a huge battery!

Apple seem to have a focus on improving or maintaining battery life and introducing new battery technologies to help with this. In that I support them wholeheartedly. I'd rather have a phone that doesn't go flat after a few hours is well built and has every bell and whistle known to technology and is thus a prime target to failures, probably poor support, and first generation flaws. I've had all those sorts of phones before from Samsung, Nokia and HTC and you can keep them.
 
rerelease said:
What if Apple calls it 4S because they can't fit the A5 in it?

A5 is twice the size of A4 and in the iPhone 4 the internals are already packed to the gills.

I guess this engineering challenge could be one of the reasons for the September delay.
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The die might be twice the size but the package is only 3mm longer.
Ok only is a bit of an under statement considering how tight it's all packed in.
Still not as hard as trying fit something twice the size.

comparison.jpg
 
Piarco said:
And yet the benchmarks of the A5 have it destroying Tegra 2 based Android solutions...



Nicely provided ptysell, was going to track them down but you've saved me the effort! ... snip...
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The benchmarks that everyone shows, aren't they usually GPU benchmarks? If the comparison is about the CPU (which is what I understood the op to be talking about) how does comparing GPU's factor into it?
 
Gregintosh said:
As long as I can get an iPhone later this year that has good reception I will be a happy man.
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You and me both.

Frankly if it can make calls as well as my other AT&T phones, I will be very shocked and very happy all at once.

This is the only major complaint I've ever had with the iPhone. Then to make things worse Apple has always blamed AT&T. To get this issue behind us would really make me happy.

I have faith that Apple can do it, therefore its only a matter of if they will. If so, that would go a long way in restoring my positive image of the Company.
 
Arnold missed one important piece:
"the sources indicated that China Mobile is expected to reach an agreement with Apple to sell iPhone 4S smartphones in China in September"
 
DTphonehome said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

I'm calling 4S: A5 proc, 8MP camera, slightly bigger screen (same resolution), higher capacity. Probably NFC.

iPhone 5: A5, LTE, NFC for sure, bigger screen, higher capacity. MAYBE Thunderbolt (but I doubt the chipset will be low-power/small enough).
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Uh, if they come out with a iPhone 4S, doesn't that mean the iPhone 5 name is dead..
iPhone = 1
iPhone 3G = 2
iPhone 3GS = 3
iPhone 4 = 4
iPhone 4S = 5
iPhone LTE = iPhone 6..
 
aeaglex07 said:
At&T has given me early upgrade option every June since the original iPhone, including this year - June 16. Which leads me to believe the next iPhone will be released in June
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Yes I know of this early upgrade; you have to spend so much on the account for the early upgrade I was told

Did u receive a notice of eligibility? On a family plan
 
Soooo why are they delaying the next iPhone till September if it won't even have any upgrades other than a slightly faster processor that will be 6 months old by the time it is released?

Oh right, they are moving the camera flash. SOLD!
 
Am I the only one who doesn't give a hoot about LTE? Seriously!

The theory (as far as I am aware) is that LTE is faster than current cell carriers provide. Ok. And what's the big promise (by Apple or the cell carriers)? 2x the speed? 5x the speed? And when will this promise materialize for 100% of all subscribers? Yea....these are the questions I have and I bet neither Apple nor Verizon nor ATT will answer them fully.

I have a 3GS...just give me the "next iPhone" that has some major features/improvement over the iPhone 4...like:

-cheaper price AND more storage
-more software features
-more apps/games out of the box (not that stupid online game portal thing)
-better browser functionality/improvements such as caching and FAR better support for websites that use pull-down menus, bubbles, etc. I'm sure we'll never see Flash even though 75% of sites still use it.
-better camera/video
-better camera/video editing/offloading/emailing
-iTunes wireless synching


I may be part of the small percentage of the people that say this: but can we hang up the towel on the cell carrier speed topic...I use my iPhone 90% of the time on WIFI. Sure, the occasional phone # lookup or email while I am a passenger in a car...but so so often I am near WIFI...and I do not live in a city.

Anyway, the features I listed are what I'm looking for...not some lame cell carrier empty speed promise.
 
There is no point in rushing 4G out with the iphone 4.5 as 4G is not widely available yet. Wait for its availability to be spread and implement it with hte iphone 5.
 
if the next iphone is 3g only, then i won't even consider buying it. i have no problem waiting for an lte version.
 
Since DigiTimes routinely contradicts themselves, their accuracy has to be in the low single digits. Apple must be pleased. No leaked prototype this year. Just mass confusion. The daily reports of different dates and features without anything concrete is exactly what they want.

As late as February, DigiTimes was "confirming" a retina display in the iPad 2. In December they confirmed the USB port.

The next iPhone will be called something and likely release between July and September. The A5 seems like a no brainer. No one outside of Apple has any clue at all about anything else. This story is silly, it is not even interesting speculation.

DigiTimes was still claiming an IPad 2 delay in late February. It came out early. (and nearly everyone on this forum already new it was when they claimed they can not confirm March shipments on 2/24). They are nearly always wrong about everything.

They give very specific details in their idle speculation to make it sound plausible. That is why so many expected an iPad 2 with 2048x1536 resolution. Then when they are wrong, they will simply say Apple changed the design...
 
Kelmon said:
If you are the sort of person that upgrades their phone each year then I can imagine that the 4GS isn't going to be very exciting for someone with a 4G. However, I still have my 3GS and that struggles today with iOS 4 so I'm very much looking forward to the 4GS later this year. There's a lot that I like in the current 4G so it all looks good to me.

I'm also pretty sure that the UK doesn't have LTE (certainly not in my area) so I really couldn't care less about it. 3G is honestly fine and I'd rather have longer battery life.
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Amen:)

With 2 year contracts IMO you upgrade to the next best available at the time.

For example I will be done with my current contract in September, but I'll keep my 3GS until the next iphone (hopefully by December or so) comes out.
To wait for 4 LTE version is too long and ATT isn't even done with 3G everywhere.

As for features, coming from a 3 GS I know it will be fine for what I am doing now:), but I do have a wish list:

64GB or more to put all my music on
Better charging plug in. The cables always break at the connection.
(Just bought another 12 cables on Amazon for $ 3.00 supposedly OEM.

Speech recognition based on Dragon would be great now.

Also could probably do without the back being glass (I will use a case)
 
I've had my Viphone 4 for about three months now, and I can say that the improvement I would like to see is a slightly larger screen. Other than that, I have no further demands!
 
I didn't expect anything earlier than 2012

If I should stick with the iPhone past my contract expiration this September, I'll wait for the iPhone 5. At this point, between the heavy battery drain iOS 4 puts on my 3GS and my iPad and increase in commuting fares I probably won't continue with the phone.
 
Interesting decision...

This isn't news since it's what we've been hearing since day 1. Puts me in an interesting position being a former 3GS owner who sold it to buy iPhone 4 and have my contract expire in July. I guess I'm in a very good spot but bad for my indecisiveness.
 
well, looks like I'll be sticking with my phone until sometime next year. This year's release will be a pass on my part.
 
timerollson said:
So does this change the refresh cycle for subsequent years?
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No one knows.

What we do know is that Apple pretty much releases new product on their own timetable, not what is convenient for you or me. The sole exception might be new iPods in the fall in preparation for the holiday selling season.

Apple will do whatever it damned well pleases. If they want to monkey with the refresh cycle, they will.
 
CFreymarc said:
Duh! Finally glad this board has caught up to the word of the iPhone 4G / 4S / 4GS this summer and the iPhone 5 next year.
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Hi, could you please stop calling it the iPhone 4S? I bet it's gonna be the iPhone 5. The iPhone 3GS moniker was necessary, since it was the 3rd iPhone and any other number would have been confusing. The current iPhone 4 though is actually number 4. The chip is the A4. Why on earth should Apple stop counting it's iPhones and - by naming it iPhone 4S - give the impression, the new iPhone is basically the old iPhone while inside we have the A5? They deliberately did not start naming the chips with number 1 because it was supposed to be named in line with the iPhone it is embedded in. Therefore: From now on no more S-iPhones.

Or am I wrong? :D
 
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