We all know there’s going to be a new iPhone this summer but an interesting little wrinkle is that it may come out in June, according to how AT&T is managing vacation requests.
The Boy Genius Report said the nation’s second-largest carrier has put a block on employees’ vacation requests for June, a move it also did the last two summers when previous versions of the iPhone launched in July. When you put this together with the reports that Apple is making an announcement in San Francisco June 22, the stars are aligned for a new iPhone in the not-too-distant future.
I’m personally hopping on the “iPhone HD” bandwagon because there has to be a better display to compete with the likes of the Nexus One, Droid and Galaxy S. I’d kill for a 4-inch plus display at a higher resolution. I also think we’ll get a modest increase in the camera to 5-megapixels and Apple may just throw in a front-facing camera for iPhone-to-iPhone video calls. I think 802.11n WiFi should be a given, we may see some RFID integration and there’s bound to be a few surprises as well.
Even if it’s just a modest upgrade, the next iPhone will sell a million units on opening weekend. That’s just how it goes. But, I think Apple does need to step up its game because the competition is quickly closing in. On the hardware side, things like the HTC EVO 4G and Droid Incredible leave the 3GS in the dust. With iPhone OS 4.0, Apple’s still marginally ahead of the other platforms but the gap isn’t as big as it once was. The App Store is still far ahead of the competition – it has more than 180,000 apps compared to the 38,000 for Android Market – and developers will continue to try and reach the more than 85 million iPhone OS users, despite any control issues Apple has.
[Via BGR]