iPhone 5 release date "confirmed": 2012 (rumor roundup) [u]

By Richi Jennings. April 12, 2011.

Update 3: Rumors of an iPhone 5 release date delay won't die. Now a credible report from financial analyst Avian Securities seems to confirm the fanbois' worst fears -- Apple (AAPL) won't release the iPhone 5 until 2012, or perhaps late-2011. Time for another one of Richi's rumor roundups. In IT Blogwatch, bloggers get busy.

Your humble blogwatcher curated these bloggy bits for your entertainment. Not to mention Super Mario Bros. vs. Jack Conte...

Matt Peckham hunts for the truth:

Avian Securities just moved the ball back up-field ... claiming the iPhone 5 won't go into production until ... September. ... That could put the iPhone out as far as ... 2012.
...
Avian's sources? A "key component supplier." ... Avian says the supplier's position jibes with its own conversations around the supply chain.  

 
Here's the horse's mouth, Avian Securities:

Supporting our comments over the last month, conversations with yet another ... supplier indicates that production ... will begin in September. ... We believe the consensus view is moving towards this scenario.
...
This leads us to believe that any launch is ... more likely a 2012 event.  

Christian Zibreg questions the idea:

Can Apple really be so confident in iPhone 4 to push back the iPhone 5 to early 2012? This would give anyone in ... the Android camp ample time to run circles around the iPhone 4.
 
Worse ... Apple would be missing on the all-important holiday shopping season ... people [won't] buy last year’s phone – unless Apple slashes the price.  

Alex Heath joins the dots:

We’ve already heard from multiple sources in the industry that Apple won’t follow its usual roadmap. ... The Verizon iPhone was just launched in February, and Apple has a totally different position in the mobile market. ... There has also been speculation that Apple could be waiting for the maturation of LTE.  

So solipsism wonders if this is about unifying GSM, UTMS, CDMA, LTE:

[Apple] has the Gobi chip in the Verizon iPhone 4, sans the needed radios. But I can’t see that happening unless they can make the chip considerably more efficient.
...
With the A5 being slightly bigger than the A4 ... adding back the SIM card slot, and then adding LTE ... not to mention antennas, it seems hard to think Apple has the ability to make that leap. ... But maybe that’s why they’d delay the release by several months.  

But Jin Kim wonders if Avian is being naïve:

This con­tra­dicts reports from [Korea] just six days ago that the iPhone 5 is on tar­get for a ... June release. Just in terms of dis­plays, Apple uses mul­ti­ple sup­pli­ers. ... There are at least two that I know of: LG Display and Samsung.
...
There might be sec­ond tier sup­pli­ers lined up that might need to begin mass pro­duc­tion at a later date, September for instance.
...
I still think the iPhone 5 will be an iPhone 4S.  

Do you like the way John Paczkowski thinks?

Apple doesn’t plan to unveil a new iPhone at its Worldwide Developers Conference. ... Increasingly, I’m hearing ... about the company ... commandeering its annual September media event to launch the device instead. Which seems plausible.
...
Let’s face it, once you’ve perfected the iPod ... there’s only so much you can do to refine it. ... So why not spice things up by throwing the iPhone into the mix? [It] would not only give Apple a few more months to prep the device ... it would ... introduce the iPhone 5 right as we head into the busy holiday shopping season.  

Richard Pike fishes for more: [You're fired -Ed.]

All of this may be the result of Apple trying to figure out where the next iPhone is going to fit into the changing landscape for smart phones. ... NFC ... LTE ... early announcements about quad-core chips.
...
All of this has Apple at a crossroads. ... The Android OS has taken over the majority of world wide shipments and Apple needs to make changes.  

 
Meanwhile, Rick Aristotle Munarriz rolls with it:

Verizon Wireless ... didn't get off to a blazing start when it embraced the iPhone 4. ... Verizon customers may ... have suspected that a shiny new iPhone 5 awaited them. ... If that's not the case, potential Verizon iPhone owners may stop holding out and take the plunge.
...
That would seem to make AT&T a loser. ... Any delay may ... buy the company time to beef up the reliability of its much-maligned network, but I think ... [it] will simply make Verizon Wireless a more formidable iPhone foe.
...
Apple will have a problem selling iPhone 4 smartphones ... any delay could damage its fans' faith in the steadiness of the company's upgrade cycle. ... Any iPhone 5 delay, even if it's a one-time fluke, will eat into [that]. ... If the iPhone 5 is late, let's hope that it's worth the wait.  

 
And Finally...
Super Mario Bros. vs. Jack Conte (one half of Pomplamoose)
 
 
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Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and security. He's also the creator and main author of Computerworld's IT Blogwatch -- for which he has won American Society of Business Publication Editors and Jesse H. Neal awards on behalf of Computerworld, plus The Long View. A cross-functional IT geek since 1985, you can follow him as @richi on Twitter, pretend to be richij's friend on Facebook, or just use good old email: itbw@richij.com.

You can also read Richi's full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.