Apple iPhone 5 launch: What you will likely see

Apple iPhone fans don’t have long to wait now until the next release of the trend-setting smartphone. But to help take the edge off some of the anticipation, we thought we’d give you a run down all of the  iPhone rumours currently floating around.

Apple is one of the few companies that has made secrecy and speculation part of its business model. Indeed, the rumours surrounding the company have become a cottage industry, sustaining a huge number of sites dedicated to Apple Kremlinology. Usually the sites come to a consensus this close to a launch but, this time round, the rumour mongers can’t seem to come to agreement over whether the launch event will see a single new phone or more.

More than one new phone

Sites are talking about an iPhone 4S and an iPhone 5. The iPhone 4S is thought to be a lower-priced model that will help Apple compete with some of the lower-cost Android handsets. Android phones are outselling the iPhone 2-to-1 in the US . Of course, only Apple makes the iPhone and there are a huge number of Android handset makers, but Apple still is seeing its market share eroded by the Android army.

Of course, Apple has sold previous models before at lower costs, so this isn’t an entirely new strategy.

Some have wondered whether Apple would only launch the 4S, but there is a lot of evidence that Apple will launch both the 4S and the iPhone 5. News.com says that former US vice president and current Apple board member, Al Gore, let slip that there would be iPhones plural , not just a single phone, released.

US tech sites are also reporting that a screen shot has been leaked from an internal website of US electronics retailer Radio Shack showing a number of iPhone 5 models . Mac rumour site 9 to 5 Mac also highlighted leaks via iTunes that indicated that an iPhone 4S was upcoming . I think it’s pretty safe to say that we’ll see both a lower-priced 4S and a new top-of-line iPhone 5.

Dual-core power, dual-mode ‘world phone’

It is also expected that the new phones will be powered by Apple’s A5 chip, which first showed up in the iPad 2. That will bring the iPhone up to speed with the increasing number of dual-core powered Android handsets such as Samsung’s Galaxy S2.

The other rumour is that the phone will have a dual-mode radio, working on both the global GSM system and the CDMA system  operated by US carriers Sprint and Verizon. While CDMA is primarily used in the US, there are a carriers that use the technology in Japan and India as well.

From 3G to 4G

The phone will also get a data speed bump, although this is again a point of disagreement. Many sites are saying that the phones won’t move to LTE but rather HSPA+ , which can theoretically deliver 21Mbps. LTE is just being rolled out in the US and elsewhere, and HSPA+ is a bridging technology until the even faster technology is in place. Regardless of which is used, the new iPhones will definitely sport faster data connections.

Siri, your personal assistant

The new iPhones are also expected to get improved voice recognition capabilities, including an assistant service based on technology Apple acquired in April of last year. Only a few months after the Siri personal assistant app launched in the app store, Apple scooped it up . The app uses speech recognition technology from Nuance Communications to translate voice commands into actions. When Apple bought the company, the Wall Street Journal gave this example of Siri in action :

“A Siri user can simply say, “Tell my wife I’ll be 20 minutes late,” and Siri scours the user’s social networks, address books and other programs, finds the person tagged “wife,” converts the message to text, and sends it directly to her phone.”

Keep this list handy tomorrow. You can keep score on which rumours proved to be right and which ones missed the mark.