APPLE will release the iPhone 5S by March 2013, to be swiftly followed by an upgraded iPad and the debut of the long-awaited Apple TV - dubbed iTV. However, experts have cast doubt on the claims, which emanate from the Far East rumour mill.
According to a report in the Chinese-language Commercial Times, translated by Taiwanese-based DigiTimes, Apple is expected to begin "trial production of a new version of its iPhone 5, or iPhone 5S, in December" - just three months after the current iPhone 5 went on sale. Full-scale production will start in the first quarter of 2013.
Many Apple devotees were annoyed when Apple released the iPad 4 in November, just eight months after the iPad 3 was released, a decision that left many with an 'obsolete' device much sooner than would normally be the case.
However, some tech experts have cast doubt on suggestions that Apple will repeat this pattern with its next iPhone.
"The industry was surprised at how quickly the iPad 4 replaced the 3, however that was to make all of its top line products have the same connector," Luke Peters, editor of T3 magazine, told the Daily Mail, referring to the fact that Apple changed the shape of all its devices' recharging socket at the last product refresh.
Trial production could mean we'll see "snippets on the web", he says, "but it's usually 6-7 months until we see a launch, and so I would expect to see a new version, be it an iPhone 5S or a 6, late next year".
The Commercial Times report also suggests that the next iPad - the fifth generation - will follow the iPhone 5S between April and June.
Most intriguingly for Apple's obsessive following is the mention in the Commercial Times of an iTV being released in the first half of 2013.The Register observes that rumours of an Apple-branded big-screen TV have been making the rounds since 2009, when Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, a noted Apple futurist, said that that an Apple TV would launch in 2011. In 2010, he adjusted his prediction to "the next 2-4 years". ·
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