iPhone 5: Coming soon to a store near you

Barely have the hype and the corresponding hysteria surrounding the new iPad receded, that rumours about the iPhone 5 – it will be known as the new iPhone, say insiders – have begun iClouding the online space.

The latest is that the new iPhone will definitely be shipped out of the rich company’s (it’s last reported market capitalization was $555.74 billion, with share price surging 50 per cent in 2012 so far) gates in Cupertino, Silicon Valley.

While the launch date isn’t set in silicon just yet, those who’ve mastered the guessing game on Apple Inc.’s product lineups are fairly sure it will be in fall this year – that makes it around September or October 2012 – although the ‘other’ set of rumour mill suggests a June launch. I guess we’ll have to wait for more ‘rumours’ on that one to take sides.

But that isn’t all of it – after a small hop from the iPhone 4 to the 4S in 2011, Apple is bound to make a quantum jump, technically speaking, with the new iPhone, or so claim experts.

So, what will the new iPhone have that my phone doesn’t?

For starters, it will have a larger screen – 4.6 inches of it. People who claim to know what’s going on in Apple – and there are dime a dozen of those, mind you – swear that Apple’s next-generation iPhone will come with a 4.6-inch screen.

From the current screen size of 3.5 inches, that will be almost a third bigger, and the success of the new iPad will sure encourage Apple to add the retina display to the iPhone as well.

According to newswire Reuters, the new iPhone will have a sharper (a la the new iPad) and bigger 4.6-inch ‘retina’ display and is set to be launched around the second quarter. The newswire said Apple has decided on the bigger 4.6-inch display for its next iPhone and has started placing orders to its suppliers, citing the Maeil Business Newspaper as its source.

Additionally, the new iPhone might come equipped with a new dock plug (a smaller 30-pin dock connector, predicts the usually accurate iMore blog), as well as an upgraded 4G LTE technology (again, a la the new iPad). The speed would be 10 times faster than the 3G, say enthusiasts.

What else, you ask?

Well, since you asked… Remember how the iPhone 4s’s iOS 5 reached a major milestone which included Siri and iCloud? Trust Apple to go the extra mile, metaphorically speaking, to provide new software or the upgrades with its latest product launches. So, after the release of iOS 5.1, the upcoming iPhone may just bump up with iOS 6.

And, to make it big (or rather small, in true tech tradition), Apple is expected to debut an ultra small SIM card for the new iPhone. According to iPhone5NewsBlog, the iPhone 5 (some say it will be named iPhone 5.1, but we’d rather go with the new iPhone) is rumored to include a nano SIM card, which would be one-third smaller when compared to the current iPhone 4S SIM design. The introduction of nano sim card feature could be a competing factor for the Android powered devices.

But if you have been waiting for an extended memory and storage options, the new iPhone is likely to disappoint in that there have been no substantial rumours suggesting that storage could be upped from the current max size of 64GB to 128GB. But then, there always the next time.

If you do own an iPhone, or want to do so, and have a wish list of your own, do let us know in comments below. Who knows, Apple might just tweak its offering to meet your demand!

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