iPhone 5 News Blog columnist Charles Moore reports on the latest news surrounding the white iPhone 4 and how it may impact the release of the iPhone 5.
It’s not the news a lot of increasingly impatient would-be iPhone 5 upgraders are waiting for or want to hear, but it’s looking like the near-mythological white iPhone 4, originally intended to debut June 2010, and which has been the object of an Ahab-like obsessive quest by some iPhone fans over the past 10 months, is finally going to materialize.
On Wednesday, a tweet from Apple Senior Vice-President of Marketing Phil Schiller affirmed: “The white iPhone will be available this spring (and it is a beauty!),” reiterating a tweet to the same effect Schiller had made in March, which had in turn reiterated an announcement made by Apple in December 2010. On Thursday, Reuters’ Hong Kong-based correspondent Kelvin Soh reported that according to unnamed industry sources, Apple’s far-eastern subcontractors Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd., a division of Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group, have at long last begun production of white iPhone 4s, and Bloomberg News reported this week that AT&T and Verizon would have stock of white iPhones by the end of April.
Actually, the impatient and financially flush can have a white iPhone now from whiteiphone4.com which offers a White iPhone 4 Full Conversion Kit for $259 (pictured).
So, why is this bad news for folks with their sights set on an iPhone 5? Well, noting concrete, but it seems highly improbable that Apple would have Hon Hai ramping up production of a white variant of the iPhone 4 if it was about to release an iPhone 5 anytime soon, and my deduction is that if the white whale iPhone does materialize over the next couple of weeks as predicted, then the prospects for an iPhone 5 release before fall (or mid-late September, which is technically late summer) at the earliest will be looking slim. As The Register’s Tony Smith noted on Wednesday, Apple be looking to a white iPhone 4 rollout as a way to rekindle interest in the the current model, extending its production lifespan, if the iPhone 5 really won’t be out until late 2011 or even early 2012.
Also on April 13, the Taiwan-based industry-watcher Web journal Digitimes’s Yenting Chen, Daniel Shen, and Steve Shen reported that “Apple has not yet released a production roadmap for iPhone 5 as shipment volumes of iPhone 4 have continued to mount and related suppliers are not yet ready to shift their production lines for new products, according to sources at Taiwan-based touch panel makers… amid growing market speculation saying that Apple will delay the launch of the iPhone 5 until September, or even 2012 because of a shortage of upstream components.”
Mssrs. Chen and Shen x 2 also relate that their unnamed insider sources tell them that Apple has not yet released a production roadmap for iPhone 5, that touch panel shipments for iPhone 4 have remained steady, and that they have not seen a timetable to stop current production in preparation for the next-generation of iPhone, speculating that with demand for the iPhone 4 still strong, Apple may have decided to stick with some incremental upgrades or enhancements of the current version (such as the Verizon variant several months ago and the rumored white iPhone 4 release, as well as perhaps a bargain-basement prices an entry-level iPhone 4 model, and/or adding 4G support with a new 4G LTE chip by Qualcomm when it’s ready) and hold back an iPhone 5 release until its customary June or July time envelope in 2012, while its engineers undertake a major overhaul of the iPhone 5 to resolve some design and component issues. Or not.
The takeaway here is that if Apple releases a white iPhone 4 in the next month or so, the odds of an iPhone 5 announcement at the June World Wide Developer’s Conference, or in July have to logically be considered low, but what do I know?
Looking for more on how the white iPhone 4 will impact the release of the iPhone 5? Read Michael Nace’s opinion piece about it here.
It’s not the news a lot of increasingly impatient would-be iPhone 5 upgraders are waiting for or want to hear, but it’s looking like the near-mythological white iPhone 4, originally intended to debut June 2010, and which has been the object of an Ahab-like obsessive quest by some iPhone fans over the past 10 months, is finally going to materialize.
On Wednesday, a tweet from Apple Senior Vice-President of Marketing Phil Schiller affirmed: “The white iPhone will be available this spring (and it is a beauty!),” reiterating a tweet to the same effect Schiller had made in March, which had in turn reiterated an announcement made by Apple in December 2010. On Thursday, Reuters’ Hong Kong-based correspondent Kelvin Soh reported that according to unnamed industry sources, Apple’s far-eastern subcontractors Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd., a division of Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group, have at long last begun production of white iPhone 4s, and Bloomberg News reported this week that AT&T and Verizon would have stock of white iPhones by the end of April.
Actually, the impatient and financially flush can have a white iPhone now from whiteiphone4.com which offers a White iPhone 4 Full Conversion Kit for $259 (pictured).
So, why is this bad news for folks with their sights set on an iPhone 5? Well, noting concrete, but it seems highly improbable that Apple would have Hon Hai ramping up production of a white variant of the iPhone 4 if it was about to release an iPhone 5 anytime soon, and my deduction is that if the white whale iPhone does materialize over the next couple of weeks as predicted, then the prospects for an iPhone 5 release before fall (or mid-late September, which is technically late summer) at the earliest will be looking slim. As The Register’s Tony Smith noted on Wednesday, Apple be looking to a white iPhone 4 rollout as a way to rekindle interest in the the current model, extending its production lifespan, if the iPhone 5 really won’t be out until late 2011 or even early 2012.
Also on April 13, the Taiwan-based industry-watcher Web journal Digitimes’s Yenting Chen, Daniel Shen, and Steve Shen reported that “Apple has not yet released a production roadmap for iPhone 5 as shipment volumes of iPhone 4 have continued to mount and related suppliers are not yet ready to shift their production lines for new products, according to sources at Taiwan-based touch panel makers… amid growing market speculation saying that Apple will delay the launch of the iPhone 5 until September, or even 2012 because of a shortage of upstream components.”
Mssrs. Chen and Shen x 2 also relate that their unnamed insider sources tell them that Apple has not yet released a production roadmap for iPhone 5, that touch panel shipments for iPhone 4 have remained steady, and that they have not seen a timetable to stop current production in preparation for the next-generation of iPhone, speculating that with demand for the iPhone 4 still strong, Apple may have decided to stick with some incremental upgrades or enhancements of the current version (such as the Verizon variant several months ago and the rumored white iPhone 4 release, as well as perhaps a bargain-basement prices an entry-level iPhone 4 model, and/or adding 4G support with a new 4G LTE chip by Qualcomm when it’s ready) and hold back an iPhone 5 release until its customary June or July time envelope in 2012, while its engineers undertake a major overhaul of the iPhone 5 to resolve some design and component issues. Or not.
The takeaway here is that if Apple releases a white iPhone 4 in the next month or so, the odds of an iPhone 5 announcement at the June World Wide Developer’s Conference, or in July have to logically be considered low, but what do I know?
Looking for more on how the white iPhone 4 will impact the release of the iPhone 5? Read Michael Nace’s opinion piece about it here.
