Apple iPhone 5 unlikely to feature LTE

2025-06-06-30 22:59 5

The next iPhone will not feature LTE and is likely to be called the iPhone 4S, according to an analyst report from Peter Misek from Jefferies & Co.

Industry sources have suggested for some weeks that the release of the next iPhone would be pushed back from its regular mid-summer refresh to September, in order for to be ready for the expected launch of AT&T’s LTE network. However, the report suggests that this is not the case.

“We believe the likelihood of the iPhone 5 launch in September including LTE [Long-Term Evolution] is now remote,” Misek wrote in a 13 May research note. “According to our industry checks, the device should be called iPhone 4S and include minor cosmetic changes, better cameras, A5 dual-core processor, and HSPA+ [Evolved High-Speed Packet Access] support.”

Apple is said to have been keen to launch on LTE ready device to enable it to compete with devices such as the HTC Thunderbolt on Verizon, but according to Misek, LTE chipset supplier Qualcomm is not, “achieving yields sufficient for inclusion in the iPhone 5.”

On a more positive side, the note suggested that that carriers Sprint and T-Mobile USA, and China Mobile would offer an iPhone to customers for the first time by the end of the year.

The CDMA iPhone 4 launched on Verizon in February 2011 and the network had gained an additional 2.2 million iPhone customers by the end of the quarter, according to Informa statistics.

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