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News agency Reuters has cited three sources with direct knowledge of Apple's supply chain as its reason for announcing that the next-generation iPhone, which will presumably be called the iPhone 5, will begin shipping in September of this year.
While the story is one of the more strident of the many inevitable pieces of speculation to be published about the next iPhone, as lot of its predictions are nothing new.
Apple has launched a new iPhone every summer since its launch, so the only remarkable thing about the timing is that it will be a couple of months later than usual. There could be many reasons for this, including the enduring popularity of the iPhone 4.
Another reason could be supplies of the A5 chip. A further Reuters revelation was that the next iPhone will have a faster chip. This was universally presumed to be the case since the A4 chip appeared in the iPhone 4 after it debuted in the first iPad. The iPad 2 featured the dual-core A5 chip, which is surely bound to be in the iPhone 5.
However, with the iPad 2 apparently selling in large numbers Apple may be wondering if it can ensure there will be sufficient A5s for the next iPhone, so maybe it's buying itself a bit of time to make sure there aren't any supply-chain problems.
The only other bombshell from the report, apart from the fact that production will begin a couple of months before the product ships, was that the iPhone 5 will look quite a lot like the iPhone 4. Other rumours concur with this, as well as the likelihood of there being a better camera and a Qualcomm modem chip.
