Reports say that iPhone 5 to launch in Sept., iPad mini in August

As summer approaches rumors of the iPhone 5 begin heating up, and the latest come from sources in the Taiwan technology supply chain. DigiTimes sources its info from that sector, and says that the iPad mini, a 7-inch tablet, is due in August, while the iPhone 5 will launch in September.

Although there have been rumors that Apple would return to a summer launch for the next-generation iPhone, most believe that the iPhone 5 will launch later in the year, not in the summer, as was generally the case before last year’s mid-October iPhone 4S launch.

Foxconn is reported to have landed the orders for Apple’s iPad mini. Meanwhile, although folks usually associate Foxconn with Apple in China, it has other manufacturers as well, with Pegatron Technology the second largest behind Foxconn.

In that vein, Pegatron has landed the orders for Apple’s sixth-generation iPhone, which may or may not be the iPhone 5. That device will launch in September, a little early for an annual refresh, but not so early that it would tick off end users who bought the iPhone 4S.

In addition, the report goes further and says that a new 10-inch iPad would be released Q4 of 2012, also built by Pegatron. That last rumor seems questionable. For the holiday shopping season, Apple wouldn’t, it would seem, want to release an iPad in December or late November.

If they released it in October that would mean only a 7 month span between the new iPad and the “newer iPad.” That doesn’t seem likely, especially since they released the new iPad with LTE support – at least in North America (we could see it being more likely if an LTE iPad was needed).

Wednesday’s report also said that Pegatron has “internally decided to downsize its SI motherboard department and to shift resources to Apple’s orders.” Foxconn, meanwhile, has a ceremony scheduled for Thursday to break ground on a new 10,000-square-meter operational headquarters in Shanghai, China, which is supposed to be completed in 2015.

DigiTimes has a mixed record in terms of rumors, so we will see if any of these pan out.

 

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