[Ben]

The quick release of iPad 2, combined with the delayed release of a new iPhone, has resulted in rife speculation about this most-watched area of Apple's product lineup. Now we're but a couple of months (rumour has it) from new gear, speculation is notching up and up.

Talk of a lower-cost iPhone has resurfaced, while talk of both minor and major iPhone modifications continues. At the moment there are so many conflicting reports it's hard to even hazard a guess at what this year's iPhone refresh will bring, but some sort of iPhone 4S and the expansion of the range with a cheaper device would be a fair stab I think. But do we really need a dual-core A5 chip in the iPhone 4? I hadn't thought so, but with iOS 5 perhaps the answer will be a firm 'yes' once we see what it can do with better hardware under the hood.

The latest iPad chatter hints at an "iPad 2+", but as an expansion of the iPad range rather than a replacement of the current iPad 2. The addition would come in the form of a high-res screen, rather curiously leaving iPad buyers to pick what resolution they want. I can't help but think this rather goes against Apple's mission for simplicity with iOS devices, and it'll play havoc with apps (there are now 100,000 iPad apps in the store, quite remarkable), and honestly can't see it myself. An updated screen would surely be best placed in a whole new iPad. At the same time, iPad is a massive success, and fleshing out the range to give buyers more choice would be a great idea. I'm divided.

Not least because if an iPad 2 with a better screen came out, I'd want one. Groan. No, I would have to force myself to wait. Ahh!

Back to iOS 5, and I think this is what really has me excited. Apple has made fundamental changes to iOS in each revision, but this time the changes feel significant because, from watching the keynote, it looks like they'll change how we use iOS in almost every way.

But what do you want from the impending crop of iOS devices, and what has you excited?

[DBMandrake]

I'm actually most excited about iOS 5 to be honest. :)

I can't really see what else they can add to the iPhone to improve it over the iPhone 4, other than a different antenna design (heh heh) and the faster dual core A5 processor to bring it into line with the iPad 2's performance. Maybe improved battery life, although batteries do have technical constraints that can't easily be engineered around, and the iPhone already compares favourably in battery life to other Smartphone's anyway. Physically more rugged would be nice too - ditch the glass on the rear IMHO.

Other than those, what is it lacking, really ? I really don't think we can predict what Apple's thinking this time around, as for the first time ever since the iPhone was released they've broken their yearly summer iPhone update schedule, with no explanation given.

Rumours abound of course, but I think there are a few possible contributory reasons for holding it back until September(ish) -

(1) The Verizon iPhone only came out in February, a mere 4 months before the normal release time of the next iPhone in June.

If they brought out a whole new generation model just 4 months later it would seem to be a huge waste of engineering effort to release a CDMA version of the iPhone 4 to then only sell it for 4 months, not to mention pissing off a lot of customers who bought it, only to have it obsoleted so fast.

A lot of people said it was crazy to buy the initial Verizon iPhone when it would be obsolete 4 months later. Well guess what - it's 5 months later and the next iPhone is still nowhere to be seen, and almost certainly won't appear until iOS 5 is released - which is slated for "the fall". I guess the fall means September to November, so we could see it any time then, although my bet is on late September or early October, as November is too close to the holiday buying season to ramp up production.

It could be as simple as Apple making a judgement call that their competitors were far enough behind that there was no urgent and pressing need to update the iPhone 4 hardware in June/July, so they were able to get another 3-4 months of sales of the Verizon iPhone to recoup R&D costs for that model.

(2) There are a ton of changes in iOS 5, and they're at least 3 months behind their usual release schedule. Maybe the hardware is ready but they won't ship it until iOS 5 is ready. Rumours are that refreshed laptops have also been ready for weeks but are waiting on Lion to be released before they will ship them, instead of putting them out with snow leopard and a free upgrade, so holding back the iPhone 5 hardware for iOS 5 seems perfectly reasonable, especially if they don't feel their competitors breathing closely down their neck this year.

The question is why is iOS 5 ~3 months behind schedule this year ? A couple of things I think - one is the development of the Verizon iPhone, which has a separate fork of iOS (4.2.5-4.2.6) in much the same way that the original iPad had it's own iOS 3.2 fork that was separate from the iPhone. It wasn't until 4.2 that the iPad and iPhone were unified, and it looks like it won't be until iOS 5 that the Verizon iPhone iOS will be unified with the rest of the models. Maintaining two separate forks of iOS for the two models of iPhone is a lot more work.

Another possible reason is that the size of the development teams at Apple are rather small by industry standards, and it's common for people to be pulled off one project and put on another for a while when deadlines loom. As we know Lion will be out very shortly, it's a relatively big update (compared to the leopard to snow leopard transition) and it's very likely that a lot of programmers on the iOS team were pulled off and put to work on Lion over the last few months to get it out the door, thus causing the iOS schedule to slip.

The same thing happened in reverse in previous years where I'm pretty sure that it was found that a lot of the Mac OS team were pulled off Snow Leopard for a while and put on iOS to get the 3.0 release out the door in 2009, thus delaying Snow Leopard.

(3) They may have finally decided to "realign" the iPhone and iOS release schedule so that new major releases of iOS and iPhone's in future come out in September along with the new iPod Touches. It never made much sense to me why the iPhone always came out in June/July along with a major iOS release, while the iPod Touch always came out in September for the holiday buying season.

It seems the only reason why iPhone's have come out in June/July, is because that's when the original iPhone came out, 6 months after it was announced at Macworld 2007, with no other good reason. If they thought they should be releasing new models in September they would have to delay the release one year only, perhaps this is the first year they've felt sufficiently safe to do so without risking being overtaken.

As for the iPad 2+ rumour for higher resolution screen in "the fall", I really can't see this happening. Apple are very unlikely to bring out a second model of iPad only 5-6 months later due to buyers remorse causing the "osbourne effect". As things are now, people know that Apple won't release a new model more than once a year, if there was suddenly the constant risk that there might be a second new model in the same year, people would hold off buying. I think it would be very foolish for Apple to release another iPad this year - just save the retina display, if it exists, for next year.

I think what Apple are focusing on this year is software - Lion, and iOS 5, and that we'll be seeing an iPhone 4S in late September which is a speed bump model, much as the iPhone 3GS was over the 3G. Dual core A5 processor, maybe a slightly better camera, and/or better flash, maybe a slight rework of the antenna (perhaps like the Verizon iPhone 4) and that's about it. No major changes.

[Ben]

A third beta of iOS 5 is out, I wonder how long it'll be before we hit GM? If the release timeframe isn't until September then I guess we wont see anything for a while... but who can say for sure? As soon as there's a GM I'm probably going to grab it and put it on the iPad 2, like I did with iOS 4 GM on the original iPad. Very, very envious of all those trying out the betas but I just can't risk the bugginess for now.

More rumours have continued to surface since my initial post. A 'high end' iPad 2 continues to be discussed, aimed at the professional market. I quite like the idea of adding another model to the iPad 2 range... but different screen resolutions between models screams *developer nightmare* to me. Still, perhaps the iOS developer crowd could handle a little more complexity; especially if it made the iPad 2 a platform for image and video editing.

There's also continuing chatter of current iPhone 4 cases being used to test new iPhone 5 internals, that will actually find their way into a new, slimmer casing. I'm still leaning towards iPhone 4S at the moment... but I also still think the iPhone range needs expanding, so we'll see.