iPhone 5 launch date rumour: Steve Jobs’ D-Day, hints Verizon

Published Sunday, July 22, 2012

By Vicky Kapur

This is the stuff movies are made about.

A legendary CEO (read: Apple’s Steve Jobs) slogs it out in his garage to make his dream a reality but is booted out unceremoniously from his project in a long power struggle.

However, in the darkest hour of his dream project, when his company needs him the most, the dynamic director makes a comeback and turns it around to make it the undisputed word leader.

At the peak of his career, though, the CEO loses his long battle with cancer, and dies before he can launch his latest – last – dream product for his company.

And so it is emerging that, despite losing out to the shiny blue Samsung Galaxy S III, Apple Inc. will hold its horses until October 5 – Steve Jobs’ first death anniversary – to launch the much-awaited and even more rumoured iPhone 5.

Of course, in true Apple tradition, the Cupertino-based technology giant has remain tight-lipped about the launch date, specs, price-points – even existence – of the latest iteration of the iPhone.

However, the CFO one of Apple’s partners-in-crime – Verizon, a wireless network company – may have inadvertently revealed Apple’s plans for a fourth-quarter launch of the “big phone”.

In Friday’s earnings call that discussed Verizon’s financial performance during the second quarter of 2012, the company’s chief financial officer Fran Shammo dropped a rather big hint about the upcoming launch of Apple’s new iPhone later this year.

“…the company could be expecting a big phone to launch during the fourth quarter of this year,” Shammo said during the call, but did not specify an exact date.

If – and it is a big if, mind you – Apple Inc. is sure about not launching the iPhone 5 in August, as has been previously reported, and it is going to be the fourth-quarter, then it seems there is no better day to launch it than Steven Paul Jobs’ death anniversary – October 5.

While it will definitely be a tribute to the legend, the date also makes logistical sense for Apple.

The launch announcement will be in time to meet the holiday demand rush that begins in the right earnest in November – which means that retail outlets across the world need to be stocked up with the devices by mid-October.

The date – October 5 – will also be following a similar pattern to last year, when Apple announced the iPhone 4S on October 4, 2011, and the smartphone went on sale on October 14, 2011 in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Of course, a day after the launch of the iPhone 4S, Steve Jobs died of respiratory arrest related to his metastatic tumour. Just like in the movies!

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