14 DAY TRIAL // Just as the working week is coming to an end, we stumble upon a claim from Etisalat’s Chief Corporate Communication Officer that Apple is launching a 4G-capable, LTE iPhone 5 later this year.
The leak comes via GulfNews, who quotes the Arab wireless operator’s communications boss as saying: “Yes, we are in talks with most smartphone manufacturers including Apple on the rollout of the 4G handset, iPhone 5 later this year.”
Ali Al Ahmad, Etisalat’s head of corporate communication reportedly added: “As the first telecom organisation to roll out the 4G network, LTE, in the Middle East, we have already started talking to them for the handsets and chipsets in them.”
Etisalat is known to be in the final stages of deploying the advanced LTE (long term evolution) network - a standard also referred to as 4G, as the successor of 3G - and plans to launch the service commercially in the third quarter of this year, according to the report in question.
Apple is widely believed to plan supporting LTE with the next major release of iPhone hardware.
The Cupertino tech giant this year broke its refresh cycle by featuring a software-only WWDC keynote address, leaving a potential iPhone refresh announcement for the fall timeframe.
Many Apple analysts, however, also put their money on an iPhone 4S announcement, and while WWDC 2011 featured nothing of the sort, some believe this incremental update is still on the table.
Whichever the dubbing, Apple’s next smartphone will most likely pack the advanced A5 chip found inside the iPad 2, as was the case with the original iPad and the iPhone 4.
The chip is capable of 9 times the graphical performance of the current A4, and it is a dual core unit, unlike its predecessor, which boasts a single core central processing unit. A back-facing 8 megapixel camera and a relocated LED flash should also be part of the next iPhone announcement, rumors have it.