Preorder iPhone 5 here... explore specs, prices while you’re at it

The Chinese and the Japanese are at it, again.

A Japanese blog is claiming that the iPhone 5 already in production while a Chinese e-commerce website has gone a step ahead and started accepting preorders for the hotly anticipated phone.

Preempting the demand for the iPhone 5, Alibaba group-owned Taobao, China’s largest e-commerce platform, has begun offering pre-orders for the Apple device even before Apple has launched it – or even announced a firm date for it.

The Chinese website has mock-up pictures and supposed technical specifications of the iPhone 5, something that analysts have only been guessing until now.

At the same time, Japanese blog Macotakara.jp says that the iPhone 5 is well underway, and as proof of the pudding, says that the back of the new iPhone has both glass and aluminium.

“In the area where aluminium is not used, there is glass,” it says.

According to rumours clouding the blogosphere, Apple plans to release the iPhone 5 sometime between August and October this year, although Apple itself has been tight-lipped about it.

Rumours about the iPhone 5 are flying thick and fast even as Apple hasn’t even announced a name for the latest edition of its iPhone smartphone – with a section of analysts claiming that it might not be called iPhone 5 or even iPhone at all.

Still, the Chinese site claims to be ‘selling’ the non-existent smartphone. “Demand is high. Yesterday, someone just bought two phones. Altogether, we have about two dozen orders,” a Taobao seller who goes by the nickname Xiaoyu told Reuters.

Sources have said the iPhone 5 would have a bigger screen than previous models, while Taiwanese media reported the phone’s voice recognition software, Siri, would have more powerful functions.

According to the news agency, sellers on Taobao are asking for a deposit of 1,000 yuan ($160) for the new phone, and the phone is apparently on retail for about $1,100 (6,999 yuan).

While Taobao doesn’t promise a delivery date, what it does promise is to get the device into mainland China soon after its release in the US and Hong Kong, where Apple’s devices have traditionally made their debuts.

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