“Apple Inc. has placed orders for key components used in a next-generation iPhone it is preparing to launch sometime in the third quarter, according to people familiar with the situation,” Lorraine Luk reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“According to some suppliers of components to Apple, the new version of the iPhone is expected to be thinner and lighter than the iPhone 4 and sport an 8-megapixel camera. One person said the new iPhone will operate on Qualcomm Inc.’s wireless baseband chips,” Luk reports. “The current iPhone 4 uses memory chips made by Samsung Electronics Co. and baseband chips from German chip maker Infineon Technologies AG, according to a report by market-research firm iSuppli Corp. Officials at both companies declined to comment.”
Luk reports, “‘Apple’s sales estimates of the new iPhone is quite aggressive. It told us to prepare to help the company meet its goal of 25 million units by the end of the year,’ said another person at one of Apple’s suppliers. ‘The initial production volume will be a few million units… we were told to ship the components to assembler Hon Hai in August.’ …Two of the people, however, cautioned that shipments of the new iPhone could be delayed if Hon Hai can’t improve its yield rate as the new iPhone is ‘complicated and difficult to assemble.'”
Read more in the full article here.
Same baloneywas said a week before apple announced invites to iPad release. At that time it was bloomberg that spouted the yield problems will cause delay of iPad till June. This time it is WSJ. Just another day at WS.
It’s hard to imagine iPhone getting any thinner. Pretty soon, there will be risk of snapping in half…
Thinner is good. Lighter is good. Longer battery life is good. Bigger screen is good. I hope they make it in 4″ sizes or even bigger. 4.5″ is good. I’m all for a totally redesigned device. Continuing the design cues of the iPhone 4 would be boring. I think Apple needs to spice things up a bit.
Yes those are all good, but longer battery life (given current battery tech) is contrary to thinner and lighter.
iPhone 4 is just year old; previous design ran for three years. So hardly new design this year.
Also, screen size will be either unchanged or made 4″ — no more — to include iOS-only reserved area for controls in portrait mode and for additional space for wide-screen videos in landscape module. Width of the screen as well as area for applications will be the same as now anyway to not fragment applications development.
Seems pretty strong with the metal antenna surround stiffening it up. I imagine the glass face and back, can be more recessed than they currently are.
All I can say is that the iPhone 4 is a pretty sweet design.
At some point, I would be glad to forego reducing the thickness of the iPhone package in favor of increasing the battery capacity.
Any thinner and it might be construed as a weapon.
What’s next after thinner? Sharper? So we can cut our fingers!
Steve jobs- “and after 4 years of the stunning design of the iPhone, we’re taking it even further. We are now introducing he iPhone 5 (4s?) now with iRazor technology”
Yupyupp
The only reason I can think of why the iPhone is getting thinner is to save on materials. It would seem minute, but spread out over all those devices, it probably makes quite a savings. To me, I’d rather Apple keep the iPhone the same thickness but cram a bigger or more efficient battery in it as they reduce component size. Are consumers actually dissatisfied with the iPhone 4’s current thickness and weight that it needs to go on a diet?
It’s funny that the iPhone is getting smaller and the Android smartphones are getting larger due to increased display size. That’s one way they can manage to increase the component area size and make the extra weight worthwhile.
Right… But you have it a bit backward. Android phones are not getting larger to accommodate larger displays. The larger display is just an “excuse” (it’s a “benefit” – yeah – they’ll buy that…) for not being able to miniturize as well as Apple.
Larger screen = more volume inside = lazy engineering
iPhone Nano. You just never know.
Only those in the know..know. I myself would love to see the new phone as thin as the iPod Nano.
Come on guys…. One day MDN says the next iPhone will only have small spec changes and look basically like the iPhone 4, and the next it reports the complete opposite. Quality not quantity guys ok? Please?
you do understand that MDN is not creating these articles? they just REPORT on them?…
note the Read the full article here link at the end of all these stories….
MDN is just putting the news/rumors out there for us to see in one place.
Thinner, lighter and harder to manufacture. …could it be that we’re finally see the results of the Liquid Metal license? When that finally happens it will be something the copiers can’t copy.
Replace the glass back with metal and reduce the weight: I’m fairly satisfied with everything else on my iPhone 4.
Don’t go around making people feel bad if they have clunky Android phones by telling them that hunk they are packing on their belt is cheap obsolete technology.
To them it is a major step up from the crap of a few years ago like thick Windows Mobile phones. The iPhone is already wafer thin. Any thinner and lighter may mean you could loose it and not notice it is gone.
Also a move to thin iPhones may be a problem for criminals intent on smuggling a fully functional gun through an airport or into a prison. You can make one out of most Android’s but it isn’t possible with the new iPhone, they are simply too thin.