The iPhone 4S is not the last major project that Steve Jobs worked on,
according to one analyst. That would be the next iPhone--let's call it
the iPhone 5.
The next-generation iPhone "was the last project that
Steve Jobs was intimately involved with from concept to final design.
For that reason...this product will establish the high water mark for
iPhone volumes," Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Rodman & Renshaw, wrote
in a research note this week. He expects the iPhone 5 to be a "cult
classic" because of Jobs' involvement.
In the note, Kumar said the
phone will have a slimmer profile and larger screen size but with the
same dimensions as the iPhone 4S (the relatively-small 3.5-inch screen
is not one of the 4S' best features).
The iPhone is also expected to
have LTE, or Long Term Evolution--what's sometimes referred to as 4G.
Another
source, who I spoke with this week and who claims to have knowledge of
the redesign, said the iPhone 5 is a "complete redesign. This is a very
large project that Steve dedicated all of his time to. He was not that
involved in the 4S because his time was limited."
That makes sense to
me. Cosmetically, the iPhone 4S is identical to the iPhone 4. So no big
change here. And though the 4S has been revamped on the inside, in some
respects, it carries over technology already in the iPad 2: the same
dual-core processor, same memory capacity, same accelerometer, same
gyroscope, among other similarities.
So, it's probably not
unreasonable to expect the iPhone 5 to be a "complete redesign," as the
source said--meaning both externally and internally, though probably
less so internally when compared with pronounced user-facing changes
like the display size. (No telling what kind of plans Apple has on the
software front: iOS 6? Siri 2?)
The iPhone 5 should debut around the
time of Apple's Developer's Conference in the summer of 2012, according
to Kumar's research note.
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