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Of course it'll disappoint
Here's the thing: Apple releases one iPhone per year. For a few years, they were head and shoulders above every other smartphone company. Lately, no so much. And that hasn't hurt them at all... they have a very large fan base, and still make a good device. But until it's released, of course, the new iPhone IS the best phone ever possible, according to fans. There have been sites filling with the smallest rumor, conjecture, etc. for months. Apple makes "iPhone Day" a media event, via leaks, a big presentation, and carefully controlled limits on devices available that first day. They try to both sell out and set a Day One sales record -- that guarantees the best press coverage. And of course, long lines. There's so much fantasy leading up to it, how could any release satisfy the dreams of the users and media.
On the other hand, they're still going to sell a ton of these. Apple fans are not even close to the most demanding tech buyers. They lived with the super expensive iPhone 1, 2G and not even a real smartphone in an era of 3G smartphones. Mid-range Android devices went LTE last fall; the iPhone 4S didn't, and yet, set sales records, even with a fairly minor hardware boost (mostly for faster gaming) and some exclusive software.
So, on to the predictions. I'll bet on LTE. Apple could more or less argue against LTE last year, making silly claims about power or whatever (none of which are actually true -- my Galaxy Nexus tends to last longer on 4G than 3G, and substantially longer per byte transferred). This year, if you don't have LTE, you're not even trying.
Much has been made of the new connector, and plenty will hate it. If it's just to let Apple put the headphone jack on the bottom, I suspect it'll be blasted. And Samsung will sue for Apple infringing on their trade dress (phone jack on the bottom, small dock connector). But let's see what the connector actually does. The big connector pretty did everything a phone needs to do on a connector (though the digital video conversion was so pricey, you're better off buying Apple TV if you do much iPhone-on-the-screen stuff).
Better camera? I'd rate that doubtful. To add more pixels, they need a larger sensor -- the current 8Mpixel sensor is already on the edge of being diffraction limited, and unlike some companies, Apple hasn't been selling "marketing pixels" on cameras, they're all useful. To go larger, they need a larger sensor or wider aperture, neither of which is consistent with Apple's traditional goal of making the device thinner every year.
Quad-core, also a little doubtful. It depends a bit on whether Apple's really fixed multiprocessing in iOS 6. If they're still doing their "kinda-sorta-cooperative" thing (the only background processing is available though OS-driven events), they're not going to be able to use that much of a quad-core processor. On the other hand, all of the flagship devices will have quad-core over the next year, and Apple will eventually need to scale there, for better performance and lower power (yeah, you get both). I think they'll need this for the iPad even more, so maybe it shows up now. The other SOC question: what do they do for gaming? Every recent iPhone release has been focused as much as anything on improved gaming -- no surprise, given that iOS has totally destroyed Sony and Nintendo in mobile gaming. More or faster GPUs, not unlikely.
New look: pretty much a given. They change the look with every "tick", not on the "tock". This is definitely the big change, versus the 4S. It pretty much has to be... many of the fans were expecting that last year.
Display: I'm betting a more modern aspect ratio, if not all the way up to 16:9. That does along with the rumor of a larger display -- this lets them get longer without getting wider. But of course, it's a new resolution, and will get weird if not related to older resolutions, since Apple's so bitmap-heavy in the applications API. Thus, I think they keep the current density and 640 pixel width, but go with more vertical pix. So they don't exactly match last year's 720p (much less this year's higher resolutions slowly showing up).
Software: I think Apple did very well on locking new software features (SIRI) to the new hardware, even though there was no reason the older devices couldn't have used it (like Google's voice recog, the heavy lifting happens on the server). I wouldn't be surprised if iOS 6 on the iPhone 5 offers things you can't get from the general upgrade for everyone else. That's a cheap way of making the new model effectively better, without spending anything on hardware.
Thin: yeah, expect it to be thin. And slippery... Apple seems to have cornered the market on slippery devices. If you look back to very similar pre-iPhone devices, like the Palm T|X... big screen, thin metal case, but a little wider on the bottom, so as not so easily dropped. Motorola put rubber on the back of the O. G. Droid to get a similar no-droppiness. Their current RAZRs are a bit easier to drop, but since the don't break when drop them, that's ok. Samsung devices (not sure about the SIII) are made of such thin and scratchy stuff, you need a case (I hate phone cases, but I NEED a very silicone-rubber case for my Galaxy Nexus, or it would be scratched to bits in a few weeks). I think Apple's fixing a little of this, going from glass on the back (hey! it cracks 100% of the time when dropped now, just just 50/50) to metal again... also good for thickness and weight. Apple has often been very serious about being the thinnest device in-class on release. That was by all accounts driven by Mr. Jobs, but it seems part of the culture now.
On the other hand, they're still going to sell a ton of these. Apple fans are not even close to the most demanding tech buyers. They lived with the super expensive iPhone 1, 2G and not even a real smartphone in an era of 3G smartphones. Mid-range Android devices went LTE last fall; the iPhone 4S didn't, and yet, set sales records, even with a fairly minor hardware boost (mostly for faster gaming) and some exclusive software.
So, on to the predictions. I'll bet on LTE. Apple could more or less argue against LTE last year, making silly claims about power or whatever (none of which are actually true -- my Galaxy Nexus tends to last longer on 4G than 3G, and substantially longer per byte transferred). This year, if you don't have LTE, you're not even trying.
Much has been made of the new connector, and plenty will hate it. If it's just to let Apple put the headphone jack on the bottom, I suspect it'll be blasted. And Samsung will sue for Apple infringing on their trade dress (phone jack on the bottom, small dock connector). But let's see what the connector actually does. The big connector pretty did everything a phone needs to do on a connector (though the digital video conversion was so pricey, you're better off buying Apple TV if you do much iPhone-on-the-screen stuff).
Better camera? I'd rate that doubtful. To add more pixels, they need a larger sensor -- the current 8Mpixel sensor is already on the edge of being diffraction limited, and unlike some companies, Apple hasn't been selling "marketing pixels" on cameras, they're all useful. To go larger, they need a larger sensor or wider aperture, neither of which is consistent with Apple's traditional goal of making the device thinner every year.
Quad-core, also a little doubtful. It depends a bit on whether Apple's really fixed multiprocessing in iOS 6. If they're still doing their "kinda-sorta-cooperative" thing (the only background processing is available though OS-driven events), they're not going to be able to use that much of a quad-core processor. On the other hand, all of the flagship devices will have quad-core over the next year, and Apple will eventually need to scale there, for better performance and lower power (yeah, you get both). I think they'll need this for the iPad even more, so maybe it shows up now. The other SOC question: what do they do for gaming? Every recent iPhone release has been focused as much as anything on improved gaming -- no surprise, given that iOS has totally destroyed Sony and Nintendo in mobile gaming. More or faster GPUs, not unlikely.
New look: pretty much a given. They change the look with every "tick", not on the "tock". This is definitely the big change, versus the 4S. It pretty much has to be... many of the fans were expecting that last year.
Display: I'm betting a more modern aspect ratio, if not all the way up to 16:9. That does along with the rumor of a larger display -- this lets them get longer without getting wider. But of course, it's a new resolution, and will get weird if not related to older resolutions, since Apple's so bitmap-heavy in the applications API. Thus, I think they keep the current density and 640 pixel width, but go with more vertical pix. So they don't exactly match last year's 720p (much less this year's higher resolutions slowly showing up).
Software: I think Apple did very well on locking new software features (SIRI) to the new hardware, even though there was no reason the older devices couldn't have used it (like Google's voice recog, the heavy lifting happens on the server). I wouldn't be surprised if iOS 6 on the iPhone 5 offers things you can't get from the general upgrade for everyone else. That's a cheap way of making the new model effectively better, without spending anything on hardware.
Thin: yeah, expect it to be thin. And slippery... Apple seems to have cornered the market on slippery devices. If you look back to very similar pre-iPhone devices, like the Palm T|X... big screen, thin metal case, but a little wider on the bottom, so as not so easily dropped. Motorola put rubber on the back of the O. G. Droid to get a similar no-droppiness. Their current RAZRs are a bit easier to drop, but since the don't break when drop them, that's ok. Samsung devices (not sure about the SIII) are made of such thin and scratchy stuff, you need a case (I hate phone cases, but I NEED a very silicone-rubber case for my Galaxy Nexus, or it would be scratched to bits in a few weeks). I think Apple's fixing a little of this, going from glass on the back (hey! it cracks 100% of the time when dropped now, just just 50/50) to metal again... also good for thickness and weight. Apple has often been very serious about being the thinnest device in-class on release. That was by all accounts driven by Mr. Jobs, but it seems part of the culture now.
Posted by Hazydave
Updated - 6th Sep
