By Stephen Schenck | June 21, 2011 11:07 AM
This year’s WWDC has come and gone without gracing us with a new iPhone, but that was no surprise. After all, it seems everyone’s resigned at this point to not seeing Apple’s next smartphone hardware until sometime in September. Could it be earlier than that, though? BGR has heard from one of its sources that Apple could start delivering the iPhone 5 in late August.
The source says that Apple could first announce the iPhone 5 in the first half of August, with the smartphone going out a couple weeks later. That’s right; this would supposedly be no slightly-tweaked iPhone 4S, but a new design altogether. We’ve heard enough about the possibility of a larger edge-reaching screen, but this source identified the biggest change as a whole new look for the shell – perhaps something tapered? We’ll believe it when we see it, or more likely, when images of the first cases designed to fit it start leaking.
Regardless of an August or September launch, manufacturing figures certainly seem to support the notion that the current-gen iPhone 4 is on the way out for something new. Digitimes reports that Apple has been cutting back on PCB orders by 10%, at a time of year that usually sees increased production. It’s hardly damming evidence, but it makes sense if the company is about to see much of its users’ interest shift to a new model.
