Over the weekend, Apple’s new iPhone 4S sold a staggering four million units. Despite some criticisms that the new model is too similar to 2010’s iPhone 4 to warrant purchasing at this time, it’s unlikely we’ll hear that same critique next summer when the iPhone 5 debuts.
According to Rodman & Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar, the massively redesigned iPhone 5 we expected to see earlier this month will roll out in the summer of 2012. But the iPhone 5 story isn’t the big news here. The real story is rooted in the claim that next year’s iPhone (and corresponding redesign) will represent the last iPhone refresh that Steve Jobs was closely involved with.
Kumar indicated in a note to investors Monday that his sources at Apple confirm that the iPhone 5 will be significantly redesigned. The next iPhone “will have a slimmer profile and larger screen size but with the same dimensions as the iPhone 4S … The iPhone is also expected to have LTE, or Long Term Evolution–what’s sometimes referred to as 4G.”
Brooke Crothers of CNET is only adding more fuel to the fire with a similar report of his own Monday.
“Another source, who I spoke with this week and who claims to have knowledge of the redesign, said the iPhone 5 is a ‘complete redesign.’ This is a very large project that Steve dedicated all of his time to. He was not that involved in the 4S because his time was limited,” Crothers writes.
