Oct 4: the date the iPhone 5 comes alive?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 21 September 2011 23:48

Opinion and Analysis

iPhone 5 rumours are still raging, with yet more surprises sure to still come right up until the iPhone 5's release is finally official, so it's no surprise to see October 4 touted as the day the iPhone 5 comes alive.

Ah, the iPhone 5. Expected to have a larger screen, slimmer profile, longer battery life, more memory, a better camera, a dual-core processor, more memory, faster 3G and more, the only thing we don't yet know is when it'll make its way out the door.

Now comes an announcement from All Things Digital, suggesting those 'sources' are pointing towards an October 4 release date, with finally official CEO Tim Cook set to show us all what Apple has cooked up since the iPhone 4.

We naturally expect any such event to be an event of semi-religious fervour, as the world's iFans stand ready to cheer every new feature Apple delivers unto its iPhone 5-owners to be.

It also leads to the question of whether October 4 is the iPhone 5 release date - or whether it's only the "announcement date". If it's only an announcement, then the iPhone 5 might not actually be commercially available to that lucky initial few until much later in October.

Of course, the name iPhone 5 is still in question - some believe the next iPhone might be called the iPhone 4S, but iPhone 5 does have a certain ring to it and enough time has certainly elapsed for the iPhone to jump up a version number.

But what you might think was obvious for Apple to do isn't always what Apple does, and as we all know - Apple does love to surprise.

It'd be fascinating to see Apple decide to deliver a glasses-free 3D screen to the iPhone 5, as it would be to see an inbuilt projector, 1GB of RAM, a 64GB storage option and a launch that doesn't have some kind of guaranteed initial problem.

Previous iPhones had antenna problems, mysterious plastic cracking problems, differently tinted screens'¦ from the ones I can remember.

If the iPhone 5 follows the same path, we'll be sure to hear of this issue or that affecting new iPhone 5 users, but hey, Apple has to release it first before we can find out what that issue is - if one turns up this time.

So'¦ October 4 is the first actual date to pop up in a while, and while there's absolutely zero guarantee that Apple is definitely going to launch on October the 4th, we can be certain of one thing: the next iPhone is very near.

Thus - if you're thinking of getting an iPhone, why be like those people I see walking into an Apple Store just days before a new iPhone is due?

Unless you absolutely can't wait, give it at least a two or three more weeks to see what happens, because even if October 4 is wrong, the date of the iPhone 5's release can't be far away.

We should also get iOS 5.0 at the same time, too, so October could well be a month of iUpdates and iUpgrades to remember!