According to a report over at Digitimes, Pegatron – one of the main manufacturers of Apple’s iDevices – has begun production of the upcoming iPhone 5, unofficially dubbed the iPhone 5. The report sites the usual "industry sources in Taiwan," and although Digitimes has a bit of a reputation of delivering stories which wind up being inaccurate, the device would need to begin production soon in order to meet the purported September / October release bracket.
The last we heard, the Cupertino company was said to be at the business end of testing stages, and that reliable report, which surfaced via BGR, dispelled the prior notion that production had already started.
Of the supposed form factor, we’re expecting a larger, 4-inch (or thereabouts) display, which would render the next iPhone the very first to deviate from the 3.5-inch screen – a feature of each and every Cupertino smartphone since the original iPhone released back in 2007. The fruit company is also expected to shuffle a few other bits and pieces around, most notably the headphone jack, which could be situated at the bottom of the device as opposed to the top.
Further details remain somewhat scarce, and as yet, no reports have offered any plausible forecast as to the hardware specification, i.e. processor speed, RAM, or camera quality. It is, however, expected to also be the first iPhone to feature 4G LTE, which would not be before time, and thanks to Apple’s implementation of the faster cellular chip in the 3rd gen iPad, we can pretty much consider it a dead-cert. A report which flew our way last week also "confirmed" NFC, and with many Android smartphones offering all of the above, it’s about time Apple implemented today’s hardware into its flagship device.
Given today’s report has surfaced via Digitimes, I would be inclined to think the next iPhone has yet to go into mass production, although with fellow iDevice churner Foxconn hiring a bunch of summer workers, nothing can be counted out at this stage.
As the supposed release time frame draws closer, we’ll learn much more about what always turns out to be a well-kept secret, and as soon as we do, we’ll be sure to share our findings with you, so stay tuned!
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