What to expect from Apple's next iPhone event
Signs point to Apple holding another of its trademark special events next month. According to a report from AllThingsD published last weekend, and confirmed on Monday by The Loop, Apple will launch the next iPhone on September 10. So mark your calendar, get excited, and start coming to grips with the fact that your current iPhone is about to look seriously outdated.
On the face of it, that September timing makes sense: Apple launched the iPhone 5 on September 12 of last year, and the company has been pretty consistent about a once-per-year revision of its smartphone line-up. The lone exception to that pattern was the iPhone 4S, which the company announced in October 2011, officially shifting the product line from a summer release schedule to a fall release. That release window better positions the smartphone for sales in the company’s usually blockbuster holiday quarter.
If past years are any indication—and in the field of Apple tea-leaf reading, what else is there?—a launch event on September 10 would suggest that pre-orders for the phone would open on the Friday of that week, the spooktacular September 13. The phone itself would likely go on sale the following Friday, the much less spooky September 20. Those intervals would be consistent with Apple’s behavior in the cases of the iPhone 5 and the iPhone 4S.
Of course, those dates will probably apply only to select markets around the world—likely, the U.S., UK, Canada, Germany, France, Australia, and Japan. Last year, with the iPhone 5, Apple added both Hong Kong and Singapore to the launch list; while the company would no doubt like to tack on mainland China, which CEO Tim Cook sees as a growth opportunity for the iPhone, issues of supply chain and regulations may prevent such a day-and-date release. Even so, expect Apple to proclaim a quick international rollout—perhaps, its quickest ever.
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