The months before Apple announces a new gadget are always filled with wild rumors, rampant speculation, and plenty of mythical hardware details that may or may not show up in the final product. Right now, Apple devotees are playing that very same waiting game, crossing their collective fingers that the iPhone 5 is in the Cupertino pipeline and swapping rumors in the mean time.
Both small fan sites and news giants alike are getting in on the act, citing anonymous sources who claim to have an inside line on Apple's hottest new smartphone. The juiciest of these rumors — courtesy of a pair of tipsters spilling secrets to Bloomberg — points to the iPhone 5 gaining a major boost in processing power with the inclusion of Apple's lauded A5 microprocessor.
The A5 is already wowing consumers in the company's top-selling iPad 2 tablet, and a move to include it in the next generation of Apple's smartphone doesn't seem outlandish by any means. Compared to the A4 chip which currently resides in the iPhone 4, the A5 is up to twice as fast. That kind of speed would give the new handset some extra muscle for games and other processor-heavy tasks.
A beefy 8-megapixel camera is also rumored to be in the works for the next iPhone, up from the 5-megapixel resolution offered by the current model. The rumored handset is expected to run Apple's new iOS 5 operating system, due out this Fall, which would give it the newly-announced iMessage and wireless syncing features from day one.
There has been much speculation surrounding the look of the next iPhone, with some sources claiming the phone's design will be radically different from the current model, perhaps even sporting a teardrop-shaped silhouette. Bloomberg's sources claim otherwise, stating that the new device would closely resemble the current iPhone 4. The distinction could have implications for the next device's name too: a total redesign would likely be dubbed the iPhone 5, whereas a slight update (akin to the iPhone 3G's upgrade to the iPhone 3GS) could be called the iPhone 4S.
It's important to remember that, despite having a new version of its mobile operating system on the horizon, Apple may not be ready to shake up its iPhone line at all. The company's Worldwide Developers Conference — held earlier this month in California — is usually the place Apple announces new additions to the iPhone family. At WWDC 2011, that announcement never came.
So while a laundry list of anonymous sources claims a new iPhone will be in stores by September, it's probably safest to wait until the official announcement before setting aside a chunk of change in your bank account.
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