“Apple’s newly-announced iPhone 4S is an incremental stopgap while the company prepares a phone branded as the ‘iPhone 5’ with 4G Long-Term Evolution data speeds for next spring, one analyst claims,” Josh Ong reports for AppleInsider.
“Analyst Will Strauss, president of wireless chip market research firm Forward Concepts, explained to CNet his belief on why Apple showed off an iPhone 4S and not the rumored ‘iPhone 5’ on Tuesday,” Ong reports. “‘They’re saving iPhone 5 for the LTE version and that won’t be out until next spring,’ he said. Strauss tracks companies such as Qualcomm that provide the chips for 3G and 4G mobile technologies. However, given that the report does not indicate the source of his information, Strauss’ prediction should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism.”
Ong reports, “Though Apple has shown interest in LTE, even going so far as to purchase a batch of patents related to the technology, the company had said it wasn’t willing to make the necessary sacrifices to include it in this year’s iPhone. ‘The first generation of LTE chipsets force a lot of design compromises with the handset, and some of those we are just not willing to make,” Apple executive Tim Cook said earlier this year.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We iPhone 4 owners will be among the very first to pre-order our “incremental stopgaps” otherwise known as simply the best smartphone ever made.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
They could call it whatever they want… iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPhoneR2D2, or even iPhone Zune.
The name doesn’t matter.
People will buy it, and I will be among them.
I would like to see an Apple advertisement for the new iPhone 4S along the lines:
The iPhone 4 design is thin, functional, beautiful…why mess with perfection unless you can make it better? Introducing the iPhone 4S…faster processor, improved antennas, superb battery life, faster 3G HSPA+ wireless connectivity, and a bit of genius added with the new Siri voice command system. And we did not mess with its sleek external design.