aperley

…Where by “released” you must have meant “called it”. Aside from that – your point, sir, is absolutely correct! ;-)

Sorry but you’re incorrect. Your point would be correct if they were called iPhone 3 → iPhone 3S → iPhone 4. But they are not – it’s ‘3G’ not ‘3’, and it refers to 3rd generation cellular networks, not 3rd generation of iPhone.

Among all 5 current generation of the iPhone, only one carried an exclusively numeric (as opposed to alphanumeric) index, and it matched the generation of the device – that’s iPhone 4. Alphanumeric index does not have any logical obligation to match the generation, whereas numeric-only does. This in mind, calling it iPhone 5 is illogical.

As an aside, it’s mildly frustrating to see the upcoming iPhone constantly referred to as ‘iPhone 5’. I don’t mind all the colloquial names of Apple devices (e.g., iTouch, iPad 3, BlackBook, to name a few), but iPhone 5 just makes no sense at all. iPhone 4 was the 4th generation iPhone; iPhone 4S was the 5th gen. Why would they call the 6th gen iPhone 5? My money is on “the new iPhone”, year after year going forward. Just like the the rest of Apple’s products and now the iPad as well.