The latest iPhone 5 rumor is out, and it’s a doozy. iMore is reporting that the iPhone 5 and iPad mini will be “introduced” on Wednesday, September 12, with the iPhone 5 being released to retail nine days later, on Friday, September 21.
The information, the site says, comes from a previously reliable source.
It’s unclear when the iPad mini will hit retail, although it could be the same day as the iPhone 5. Additionally, a new iPod nano will be launched on September 12; its release date is similarly unverified.
Reportedly, a new iPod touch “might” be announced on September 12, as well.
We’ve been saying for some time that we expected the iPhone 5 and, more recently, the iPad mini, to be released in the September / October timeframe. Any earlier could lead to some serious anger from iPhone 4S owners.
From our perspective, though, a key would be the completion of iOS 6. The iPhone 5 and iPad mini won’t launch without them. Last week, App4Phone.fr reported a September 21 release date, citing Chinese manufacturing sources.
Typical of Apple, not much is known about the hardware on these new devices, and even though Apple unveiled iOS 6 at the 2012 WWDC, it’s likely there are hardware-specific features that we still don’t know about.
We expect the iPad mini to be in the 7 to 8-inch range, with 7.85-inches being the most bandied about number. The iPhone 5 is expected to sport a quad-core processor, LTE, a new 4-inch 16:9 screen, in-cell touch panels that will mean a slightly slimmer iPhone, a smaller dock connector, a centered FaceTime camera, and a headset jack moved to the bottom.
Consumers have already begun “waiting” for the iPhone 5. Analysts said that Apple’s recent iPhone sales figures, which underperformed estimates, were affected by the wait for the iPhone 5, despite the fact that the iPhone 5 was three to six months away based on an April through Jun