Opinion: Early Production Suggests iPhone 5, Not iPhone 4s, in Fall

The “iPhone 4s” has become the center of conversation again today, with top tech analysts suggesting that the now much-anticipated September 7th date as being the day that Apple launches the iPhone 4s, leaving the iPhone 5 for 2012. But recent reports of pre-production for new iPhone components suggests that a fall-released iPhone will be more than just a refresh — hence deserving of the iPhone 5 moniker.
Like a bad penny, the iPhone 4s controversy continues on.
After slipping out of the iPhone 5 discussion since the WWDC, tech analysts are once again insisting that CNET UK‘s recent prediction of a September 7th iPhone release will in fact be the iPhone 4s refresh, and not a reworked iPhone 5. The most credible of these predictions came from none other than the IBTimes, who said today that the iPhone released this Fall “should be called iPhone 4S and include minor cosmetic changes, better cameras, A5 dual-core processor, and HSPA+ support. He believes Apple had hoped for the LTE chipsets to be ready for the September launch as a best-case scenario but was planning a version without LTE called the iPhone 4S.”
In an article yesterday, the IBTimes also said that, “A new iPhone version in September, which does not have commanding new features promised by iOS 5, will be a lame duck . . . If Apple gets iOS 5 ready later in the fall, then iPhone 5 will have to take the lag as well.”
You can read all of the articles related to these stories today on the iPhone 5 News Ticker.
For the same reason that many people in the iPhone 5 News Blog community have deduced Sherlock Holmes-style that any early September iPhone activity would be an announcement and not a release, the rest of the tech media outlets have transposed into a decidedly geekier concept: that because an iPhone released on September 7th could not have the fall-promised iOS 5, that it must by definition be the more pedestrian, refreshed “iPhone 4s,” thus pushing the iPhone 5 to 2012.
“Oh, my dear Watson!”
For as “elementary” as this theory may be on the part of the mainstream tech media, in the end, it is just as unfounded as virtually every other conspiracy theory surrounding the iPhone 4s/5 saga. The fact is, the tech media has worked tirelessly to get the iPhone 4s story to stick, ever since the rumor that Apple sent suped-up iPhone 4s (the plural of iPhone 4) to app developers was circulated.
Do we even know that those reports were even true? Has anyone ever seen one of these famous iPhone 4ss? (plural of iPhone 4s — I hate that little “s”!)
The fact is, if Apple had sent out a bunch of 4s models to a horde of anti-social app developers, chances are that one of them would have sold it to Gizmodo’s Jason Chen by now, and he’d have it all opened up, spread out, and photographed, like some techno-pornographic centerfold fantasy.
And he’d be in jail.
But because this story became rooted in some sort of false “fact,” people in the media somehow believe that the “iPhone 4s” is more of a reality than the “iPhone 5.”
In the same breath that the IBTimes is predicting the iPhone 4s for September, they have also reported that, “Component manufacturers have begun to receive orders,” and that “the production ramp is expected to start in July,” according to Peter Misek, an analyst at Jefferies. As of today — June 21st — there are 78 days until the fabled September 7th announcement/release. Since the iPhone 4s would naturally be nothing more than an upgrade of the iPhone 4, why would Apple need 78 days to pop in the A5 chip and a few other minor upgrades?
In addition, the tech media has reported on duel LED flashes, the return to a glass or aluminum back, 8 megapixel camera, and a larger, edge-to-edge screen for the next iPhone, with purported leaked photos to boot. All of these sorts of innovations — in addition to whatever mind-blowing new features Apple could have in store for the next iPhone that we don’t even know about — are on their way in 2011, then the September iPhone would indeed have to be named “iPhone 5,” and production would indeed need to begin now to accommodate these changes to the chassis and form factor.
In the end, Apple may choose to call the iPhone something that we cannot even imagine. Maybe it’ll be the iPhone X. Or the iPhone ɣ. Or the iPhone Artist-Formally-Known-As-Prince. Heck, it could in the end be “iPhone 4s.” But let’s remember that the “iPhone 4s” moniker is no more legitimate than “iPhone 5″ as a possibility, and an early start to production suggests that the “5″ may indeed be on its way.