Next iPhone may not be introduced at WWDC 2012

Towards the end of January, it was reported that Apple could potentially unveil the next iPhone aka iPhone 5 at their WWDC event, taking place during the middle of the year. This announcement would keep up with Apple’s tradition of unveiling their flagship smartphones at around a time that they have announced their first four generations of handsets. However, last year the brand strayed away and announced the fifth generation of the iPhone, the iPhone 4S in the fall of 2011. As per a report by iMore, who have been accurate in the past regarding the announcement of the new iPad claim that the upcoming iPhone will be announced by around October 2012.

Apple to announce next iPhone post WWDC 2012

The report states, “We’ve mentioned October 2012 as the current release schedule for iPhone 5,1 before and that’s still the plan. The exact date won’t be determined until closer to launch, but the iPhone is locked to a fall cycle for the immediate future.” Regarding the time frame, they go on to say, “That makes sense for a number of reasons. While going from the iPhone 4 in June 2010 to the iPhone 4S in October 2011 was a longer wait than previous generations, a new iPhone release in June of 2012 would create the opposite problem — only 9 months between iPhones. That’s not dissimilar to the period of time between the Verizon iPhone 4 launch in February of 2011 and the cross-carrier iPhone 4S launch in October of the same year, but that was a unique circumstance. Apple has shown they can earn significant revenue on their flagship devices even when they’ve been on the market for over a year. Why unnecessarily shorten that shelf life?” Another reason cited by the website is that Apple tends to release the iPhone along with a new major iOS. If the brand does announce iOS 6 by WWDC, then in all likelihood, they would announce the next iPhone by around the same period as last year’s iPhone 4S launch.

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