iPhone 5 Release Set For Early October
Apple confirms the rumors with invites to the big media unveil.
| Posted Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2011, at 12:03 PM
UPDATE: OK, now it's official: The world will get its first formal look at the new iPhone on Oct. 4.
Apple sent out invitations to the big unveil on Tuesday, Ars Technica reports. The event will take place at the company's Cupertino campus and, as expected, be hosted by new CEO Tim Cook.
PC Mag with more: "Apple is breaking with tradition this year, releasing its next-gen iPhone in October instead of June or July, but if past releases are any indication, we can probably expect the new iPhone to hit store shelves about two weeks or so after the event."
UPDATE Wednesday, Sept. 21: Al Gore went ahead and confirmed that the iPhone 5 will be available in October.
The Apple board member was speaking at the Discovery Invest Leadership Summit Wednesday, when he said that "the new iPhones would be out next month."
The Next Web has the full quote, via a magazine editor who was at the conference: "Not to mention the new iPhones coming out next month. That was a plug."
Nearly as noteworthy as the October release is the former VP's use of the plural. It isn't clear if Gore was talking about two different models, as has been rumored (a cheaper version of iPhone 4 and a new, redesigned iPhone 5), but that won't stop the speculation. TNW reports that after hearing the quote, "[w]e think that it is certainly possible that this implies that there are two new iPhones in the pipeline."
POST Wednesday, Sept. 21: Tuesday, Oct. 4.
That’s the rumored date for Apple’s next big media event, which everyone in tech-land believes will be where the computer company will unveil its latest incarnation of its popular iPhone.
AllThingsD.com, citing “sources close to the situation,” broke the news Wednesday, reporting the magic date. The scoop lines up closely with a number of other previous predictions from those in the know who have been speculating for weeks that early October would be when the world gets its first look at the latest must-have gadget. The new phone would reportedly then go on sale in the following weeks.
The Wall Street Journal-affiliated blog also notes that the iPhone 5 will likely share the spotlight at the Apple event with new CEO Tim Cook, who took over for Steve Jobs last month.
While it’s not confirmed that Cook will be the one onstage, he doesn’t have much of a choice, as AllThingsD notes: “To pass the presentation on to anyone else … would undercut Cook’s new role and reinforce public perception that … Steve Jobs is Apple, and that it will be a different company without him.”
