According to new reports from within Foxconn, Apple’s iPhone 5 release may be much closer than we previously believed. How much sooner? Actually, we could be seeing it in June of this year.

A Japanese television station World Business Satellite reports that a Foxconn official told it that the company is expecting to begin iPhone 5 shipping in mid-June. The same source says that Foxconn is recruiting as many as 18000 employees to work on the next iPhone 5.

This is likely great news for folks that have been waiting for the iPhone 5 ever since they got duped by the 4S. There have been a lot of rumors surrounding what the next iPhone might look like, or even what it might be called. With the newest iPad simply being called “the new iPad”, there’s some speculation that Apple may do the same with its iPhone line. What will the new iPhone have?   Some rumors claim a larger screen, virtual keyboard, no home button,  a curved back, it’s hard to say for sure. What we do find likely is that iPhone will follow the iPad’s footsteps and finally introduce 4G LTE support.

[ source  photo: ciccaresedesign]

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The rumor mill has been churning out a large number of iGadget-related whispers, with reports saying that the iPhone 5 is slated for an October release, and the iPad 3 will be coming out in early 2012.

Besides the next generation iDevices that get pumped out every year, there could be a cheaper version of the iPhone 4 coming out “within weeks.” According to “two people with knowledge of the matter” we’re going to be seeing a more affordable iPhone 4 with a smaller 8GB flash drive. Apparently Asian suppliers to Apple have started manufacturing the 8GB iPhone 4, with the flash drive being manufactured by an unnamed Korean company. Apple currently sources its flash drives from Japan’s Toshiba and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics.

While nothing’s been made public and both Apple and Samsung refuse to say anything, a cheaper 8GB iPhone 4 could help Apple boost sales in emerging markets, according to analysts. Apple could be looking to gain the business of customers with high-end feature phones who want to switch to low or mid-end smartphones. However, to target this emerging market Apple will have to lower the price to below $200, to be able to compete with other low-end smartphones. In short, the iPhone 4 might need a bit of a makeover to reach that goal.

We’re also hearing the iPhone 5 will have a bigger touch screen, better antenna and an 8-megapixel camera. The iPhone 5′s two manufacturers have been told to prepare production capacity for up to 45 million units altogether, according to the anonymous sources.

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This comes by way of AllThingsD.com, a tech blog that falls under the News Corp. umbrella… and you know how good those guys are at digging through voicemails their sources to get at the heart of a matter. This is in stark contrast to most other reports that are saying the next iPhone will be released in September, just in time for the back to school rush. The increase in staff seemed to support that notion too.

As far as the rest of the rumors go, they’re all over the map. Some say that Apple will stick with the current 3.5-inch Retina Display. Others say it’ll get bumped to 3.7-inches and others still are pointing toward a 4.0-inch display. We’ve seen all kinds of leaked cases that indicate major, minor, and no changes to the overall form factor and design. We’ve seen some with tapered shapes and others with the same block shape as the iPhone 4.  The most interesting of the recent iPhone 5 images from Gizmodo shows a mashup of the iPhone 3GS beveled edges with the unibody design of the iPhone 4; they’re so sure about it that Jesus Diaz has gone and made a bet.

And so, as is the case with all things Apple, we’re still in the relative dark about what to expect out of the iPhone 5. Steve, can you kindly put all these rumors to rest and just cross the stage in a black turtleneck sooner rather than later?

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Every year around this time we get bombarded with a whole slew of rumors surrounding a new iPhone, and this year is no exception. You may have gotten lost in the sea of iPhone 5 rumors, so let’s boil them all done in one convenient location.

First, the physical design of the iPhone 5 will likely remain much the same as the iPhone 4. It might be a little slimmer on the sides and it’s possible the back is getting replaced with metal, but the overall design will remain largely the same. That means there’s likely no push for a physical keyboard. Ever.

That said, there are some big rumors that Apple is increasing the screen size to four-inches, putting the iPhone 5 right on par with the vast majority of Android smartphones. The increased size should still fit in the same kind of form factor as the iPhone 4, except the black bezel would be reduced. The bigger screen size could mean a better resolution too, but that’s not quite as clear.

We’ve also been hearing that the home button, as we know it, will be abandoned. You’ll still get “home button” functionality, but just not from a physical button where it is now. Instead, they could put a touch sensitive button (again, like Android) or it might be moved to the edges next, possibly below the volume buttons for example. I find this rumor unlikely, but you never know.

For a while, we thought the iPhone 5 would have the same 5MP OmniVision camera as its iPhone 4 predecessor, but Sony CEO Howard Stringer effectively let it leak that they’re supplying the camera for the iPhone 5. It’s not confirmed, of course, but we’re hearing that Sony is giving their “best” 8MP cam to the iPhone 5, which might even bump its video capabilities to 1080p HD.

Not surprisingly, the new iPhone 5 should support CDMA and it should be available in white too, but we’re also hearing that they might finally bump capacity to 64GB. Conversely, they might ditch much internal storage in place of a cloud-based solution to work with iTunes Cloud. Dual SIMs is very unlikely, but R-UIM MicroCard support is likely.

The iPhone 5 will most likely have the same (or similar) A5 processor as the iPad 2 and it should expect a boost in RAM, possibly to 1GB, along with HDMI-out support via an adapter. Whether there is 4G/LTE support remains to be seen.

Perhaps most importantly of all: the date. Given the delays for the Sony camera (due to the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan), along with the too recent Verizon launch of the iPhone 4, the usual June-ish release of the iPhone could be ditched in favor of a September launch instead.

And there you have it. You are now caught up in iPhone 5 land… until another rumor rises to the surface.

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