At this point, it should be no secret that Apple will soon be coming out with a new iPhone, known in the Apple community as the iPhone 5. Credible evidence now suggests that the next iPhone will be world phone, supporting both GSM and CDMA bands.
Till an year ago, Apple only manufactured a GSM-capable iPhone, since it was the only technology which Apple was supporting since it had been tied-up with GSM-based carriers. Yet, earlier this year, Apple released a CDMA iPhone when it announced it would support Verizon. Despite appearing the same, the CDMA and the GSM iPhones are actually entirely different devices built in different places. This isn’t bad for Apple’s balance sheet, which needs to order different kinds of devices, but it’s bad for customers who might want to switch to a carrier that uses a different technology, or more importantly, travel to a country where only one of the technologies is available, such as India and Brazil, where majority of the carriers are reliant on CDMA technology.
It now seems that a new kind of iPhone, which supports both CDMA and GSM, is being used by a very limited amount of people, as confirmed by leaked app usage logs which showed that a few App Store apps had been registered with a different kind of iPhone that isn’t available today. Although said logs haven’t been made available publicly, it’s no surprise that Apple doesn’t want to continue selling separate hardware for separate types of carriers. A hybrid iPhone will include the hardware necessary to run on both CDMA networks, such as Verizon, and GSM networks, such as AT&T, allowing users to switch between those carriers if they’re so inclined, without having to replace the hardware. In addition, this change would make the iPhone the perfect travel smartphone, allowing it to work with virtually any phone carrier in the world.
The next-generation iPhone is expected to be officially unveiled at Apple’s media event, which which is expected to take place in the first half of September, if reports are to be followed. Known as the iPhone 5, the new hardware has been rumored for months, and will allegedly include an 8-megapixel camera, as opposed to the iPhone 4’s 5-megapixel one, an A5 processor (which is also built into the iPad 2), and a larger screen.
(via TechCrunch)
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