Investment bank believes the back will resemble the metallic rear panel of the iPad

May 23, 2012 00:31 GMT  ·  By

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster is advising investors to keep an eye on Apple’s next iPhone, as it will represent “the biggest consumer electronics product launch of 2012 as well as the biggest device upgrade cycle in smartphone history.”

Forbes got hold of Munster's entire research note issued this Monday, when he addressed investors with some predictable ideas, including a major redesign of the Apple handset.

“We believe the iPhone 5 will have a completely redesigned body style, which may more closely resemble the metallic rear panel of the current iPad,” he wrote.

“We believe there is a 50% chance the new phone has a slightly larger 4+” screen,” he added, and a trusted source has just confirmed it, apparently.

Munster and his boys believe the larger screen size “is one of the few areas in which Android devices have been able to compete.” The analyst added that the new phone would most likely include 4G LTE, an upgraded processor and memory, and a higher-resolution camera.

As far as sales are concerned, the investment bank paying Munster to predict these things, believes there is an 80% chance Apple would be able to meet their estimate, given the constrained supply of Qualcomm baseband chips. That estimate is 49 million units for the quarter.

Munster continues: “We expect Apple is likely to get favorable treatment in terms of access to 28nm inventory,” he said, referring to the aforementioned radios.

“Net- net, the worst case scenario is that Apple is unable to meet demand in the short term following iPhone 5 launch and units would shift from the December quarter into the March quarter as we don’t believe consumers would simply purchase another phone in most cases if they wanted the iPhone 5 and it was not available,” Munster concluded.