New iPhone 5 rumors, release date, photos, and more

When it comes to secrecy, Apple isn't so much doubling down as it is multiplying by zero. The iPhone 5 is a handset of many firsts for the Cupertino company — it moves to a larger screen, an all-new Lightning dock connector, and in-cell touchscreen technology, among other innovations. But it's also the first device to bear the name iPhone whose spec sheet we knew almost in full ahead of its unveiling.

Initially, we learned about the 4-inch display. That came from The Wall Street Journal on May 16th, got reaffirmed by Reuters on May 17th, and was reiterated by Bloomberg on May 18th. By May 19th, even if you had a legitimate mole inside Apple's supply chain, it simply wasn't worth "leaking" the screen size of the next iPhone. It was as close to fact as you could get after three of the most scrupulous news sources reported it as such.

The new iPhone is finally official. Apple has named its sixth-generation smartphone the iPhone 5 and Phil Schiller has detailed its full set of features, specs, and release details. Measuring 7.6mm in thickness and 112 grams in weight, this is the thinnest and lightest iPhone that Apple has ever made, and is constructed "entirely" out of glass and aluminum. The new iPhone looks pretty much identical to all the leaks and mockups we've seen in the past few weeks — evidently Apple wasn't able to keep a lid on its most anticipated product, after all.

And yes, it has a 4-inch display! The new screen resolution is the oft-rumored 1136 x 640, meaning the display of the iPhone 4 and 4S has simply been elongated, both physically and in terms of pixel rows. To quote Phil, "you see, we're able to add a fifth row of icons." All of Apple's own software has been updated for the new resolution and screen size, while third-party apps will be letterboxed where necessary. Also in line with pre-launch rumors, the new iPhone's display features in-cell touchscreen technology, integrating the touch sensors right into the display itself. This should make for a thinner panel overall, though Apple also touts it as "the most accurate display in the industry."

We're once again at the tail end of an annual ritual, the iPhone rumor cycle, and we're just hours away from finding out what Apple has been working on for the past year. Will the iPhone 5 look exactly like the leaks, effectively an elongated 4 / 4S with a new mini dock connector? Will it support LTE on every US carrier? Are there any surprises in iOS 6 that Cupertino has been keeping under its hat? Will it even be called the iPhone 5 at all? Everything will be revealed at 10AM PT on Wednesday, September 12th, and we'll be covering it live.

We've seen plenty of evidence suggesting the iPhone 5 will ditch Micro-SIM cards in favor of the Apple-designed nano-SIM standard, and now Vodafone UK has made that switch a near certainty. Just one day before the latest iOS handset is expected to make its debut, the carrier mistakenly posted a blog article titled "First photos of Vodafone nano-SIM cards." In the post — which was quickly deleted but preserved thanks to Google Cache — Vodafone reveals it presently has a huge stockpile of 500,000 nano-SIMs in stock and says "the first devices have now been announced." We find it hard to read that as anything other than a thinly-veiled reference to the iPhone. Why? The nano-SIM standard was approved back in June, leaving little time for any other manufacturer to have already incorporated the miniature card in their hardware designs.

On the other hand, Apple seems to have brazenly designed the iPhone 5 with its own nano-SIM from the very beginning, despite no clear assurances that it would win out against Nokia's competing proposal. Yet that's just what happened, leaving the company in prime position to be first out the door with the new standard, which offers a footprint 40 percent smaller than Micro-SIMs. The freed up internal real estate likely enabled Apple to shrink its latest iPhone's dimensions even further, something we should see confirmed firsthand tomorrow.

Audience, the Mountain View-based company which develops the earSmart audio filtering technology embedded in Apple's A5 chip, has announced that Apple is "unlikely" to use the system in the next-generation iPhone, set to be announced next week. EarSmart is known to power the iPhone 4S's Siri voice assistant feature, but third-party hacks have long enabled users to run the app on the iPhone 4 and iPod touch, devices which lack the A5 chip.

Writing in a statement last night, Audience clarified that it is "not aware of any intended changes by this OEM to its use of Audience's processors or processor IP in prior generations of the OEM's mobile phones." It is not yet clear whether Apple plans to embed its own replacement technology in the new phone, or what the dropping of earSmart could mean for the use of Siri on other Apple devices.

The industry has been abuzz with rumors that Apple was planning a reveal of its next iPhone in mid-September, and now we know the truth. The company has just mailed out invitations to an event in San Francisco on September 12th at 10AM PT at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — where Apple has historically launched new products. The Verge will be there covering the event live, with minute-by-minute updates on everything and anything announced.

The next iPhone has been heavily rumored over the past several months, with multiple photos and videos of alleged iPhone 5 parts and casings in heavy rotation, as well as rather detailed information about new screen technology, radios, and other internal changes. Our editors even obtained a first-hand experience with one of the supposed case designs during the IFA trade show in Berlin, though it's impossible to know if what has been seen thus far is representative of what Apple will announce next Wednesday. Interestingly, based on the invite (you can see it in the image above), it looks like this device will in fact be called the "iPhone 5."

Among the more anonymous booths at IFA this year, a mockup for Apple's next-gen iPhone has surfaced, looking like a fully realized compendium of all the rumors and leaks we've been hearing about the device. It has an elongated screen, a shrunken dock connector, a repositioned headphone jack, and a two-tone back cover. First spotted by GSM Israel, the mockup is making sporadic appearances at one particularly keen case maker's stand, usually ensconced in color cases.

We were told volume production of the form-fitting cases has already begun, with a view to shipping to retailers in a week's time. The mockup we got to see today confirms absolutely nothing about Apple's plans, but at least one company is confident enough in the dimensions on show to start producing accessories for the expected iPhone 5.

It's been a while since Apple last updated its pack-in earbuds; the current model with the in-line remote and mic came out in 2008, and the design of the buds themselves dates back to 2006. That may be about to change with this month's all-but-certain release of a new iPhone, however. Vietnamese site Tinhte, which has a reasonable track record of getting hold of pre-release products, has posted a video of some earphones with a striking new design allegedly bound for the new iPhone 5.

Tinhte claims that the earphones are being manufactured at a Vietnamese Foxconn plant, and they bear the legend "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in Vietnam." on the cable. The buds have an unusual molded design that appears to funnel sound into the ear canal, and the speaker grilles are largely hidden from view. Tinhte says that they look like a "fully integrated single unit," and while the solid white design is reminiscent of Apple's "unibody" construction process you can see the seams if you look closely enough.

Sharp's president Takashi Okuda said that the company would be shipping displays bound for the new iPhone by the end of August, but that plan appears to have hit a bump. The Wall Street Journal reports that while LG and Japan Display have already begun shipping the new screens to Apple, Sharp is yet to even start mass production. Since Apple is using three suppliers this is unlikely to delay the iPhone itself, but it's possible that it could lead to supply problems upon release.

The screens reportedly use in-cell touch display technology to allow for a thinner profile, and the challenges involved in this new form of mass production are said to be significant. The Journal's sources don't know when Sharp will be able to begin producing the new screens, but it's another setback for the beleaguered Japanese firm following huge losses and job cuts.

We're almost a year on from the iPhone 4S' launch, and the world seems to agree that the time is right for a successor. We've been tracking some of the rumors about what many have dubbed the 'iPhone 5,' but we don't blame you if you feel a little overwhelmed — there's a lot out there and it's hard to know who to trust. With that in mind, we thought we'd sift through the most compelling rumors and let you know how we think Apple's next phone will shape up.

This time last year the internet was abuzz with rumors about a radical redesign for the iPhone 4's successor, which turned out to be for nothing when the near-identical 4S was eventually revealed. Things are a little different this time around, though — after more than two years it's almost certain that we'll see a genuinely new iPhone case design, and after an avalanche of leaks from various sources it seems likely that we've already seen it. Despite Apple CEO Tim Cook's claims that the company would "double down" on security, there's been a steady flow of credible-sounding information on the next iPhone ever since he made the remarks. It's not been quite as bad as a lost prototype iPhone 4 in a bar, but it's close.

LG Display has begun mass production of touch screens using in-cell technology, with the panels expected to be included in Apple's latest iPhone when it is unveiled next month, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The inclusion of capacitive touch sensors in the displays themselves allows for a thinner overall form factor, an advantage for devices such as smartphones and tablets. As well as LG Display, the screens will be produced by Japanese manufacturers Sharp and Japan Display, with Sharp reportedly shipping the units this month.

According to chief executive Han Sang-beom, LG Display expects to record an operating profit in its next earnings report, after a disappointing second quarter saw the company lose 129 billion won ($113 million), its third straight quarterly loss. LG Display has also been embroiled in controversy over OLED TVs recently, with employees accused of stealing technology from rival Samsung.

It's almost a given by now that the next iPhone will feature a redesigned, smaller dock connector; we've heard the rumor for quite some time, and have seen alleged handset cases show up with the compact port. Now a photo circulated on Twitter by Jack Yao of Chinese accessory vendor Veister appears to show an example of a cable that'll use that port. There's little to distinguish it from an official Apple product, but it could also be a third-party replacement. If that's the case, though, Veister doesn't seem to be selling it.

The cable has FTC markings and what looks like a scannable QR code on the standard USB end. The smaller dock connector seems to line up with earlier reports and photos of a double-sided plug with nine pins (eight visible plus the surrounding metal conductor), though the photo is too blurry to tell for sure. In any case, we're expecting Apple to tell all in just a few weeks' time.

Today's been rather a momentous day in the UK mobile arena, following local regulator Ofcom's approval of Everything Everywhere's plans to use existing spectrum to roll out LTE service early. Vodafone, O2 and Three have complained in unison against the market distortions that would result from one carrier having 4G while everyone else waits for an oft-delayed auction, but their biggest fear may yet remain unspoken: a de facto exclusive on the next iPhone.

Come September 12th Apple is widely expected to announce its next generation iPhone, replete with LTE connectivity to match the 4G options available on its latest iPad. It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to envision Apple providing at least one version of the next iPhone with 1800MHz LTE, which would satisfy the previously unserviced needs of mobile buyers in South Korea, Germany and, yes, the UK via Everything Everywhere (EE). And whether it's a coincidence or not, it does no harm that T-Mobile and Orange (the two brands whose union gave rise to Everything Everywhere as a company) will be free to start offering LTE to their customers on September 11th.

As the rumored September 12th Apple announcement draws near, the inevitable parts leaks appears to confirm some of the rumors we've heard thus far. The latest comes from repair company iResq, which claims to have photos of the dock connectors for the new iPhone and iPad Mini. While the images don't confirm the existence of either product, 9to5 Mac notes that the dock connector shown in the photos sits beside a the headphone jack on both devices, which seems to corroborate a Reuters report just last month and rumors that've circulated over the last few days. The images also match an alleged dock connector MacRumors tracked down just a few days ago. Assuming all of these leaks line up with reality as well as they do with each other, we'll be saying goodbye to the classic dock connector next month.

iMore's sources have also revealed October 5th as a likely target for the first phase of the new iPhone's international rollout. It's expected that customers in the US and select other regions will be able to buy the device starting September 21st, so such a timeframe doesn't strike us as unreasonable. Of course, as is usually the case with these rumors, all of this could easily change — particularly since Apple has yet to make its plans for a press event official. August is rapidly coming to a close, though, so we should know more in just a matter of weeks.

If everything we've heard lines up, we're less than a month away from the introduction of the next iPhone — and as such, the rumor mill is churning out a wide variety of leaked potential parts and body designs. One of the biggest points of speculation thus far has been the new iPhone's dock connector — for months, we've been hearing that Apple would abandon the 30 pin connector it has used on iOS devices since the iPod way back in 2003 in favor of a smaller plug. That rumor has picked up steam over the last few months and hit a head in the past few days, as French site NowhereElse posted a variety of photos showing off what appears to be a USB-style connector with 16 pins, eight on each side.

Since those photos surfaced, iFixit wrote in and told MacRumors that the connector's metal frame also counts as a "grounding pin," which adds one more pin to the count. Further adding to the confusion is a line of code in iOS 6 that refers to a nine pin connector. While we likely won't know for sure exactly how this new connector will function until a site like iFixit tears the new iPhone apart, it seems pretty obvious at this point that Apple's new dock connector will have about half as many pins as the previous model — and it'll take up a lot less space, as well.

We've seen plenty of mockups and rumored parts for Apple's next iPhone that show an elongated form, but a report from 9to5Mac provides the most convincing evidence we've seen so far: 9to5Mac says that it was able to run the iOS Simulator at the next iPhone's rumored resolution of 1136 x 640, and that iOS 6 is "completely scalable to a larger display." The report indicates that this is the only resolution that supports scaling, and that when scaled, iOS 6 adds an extra row of app icons to the home screen: the additional row of apps did not appear at any other resolution besides 1136 x 640. 9to5Mac says that it tested the scaling using a tweaked iOS Simulator application (included in the iOS development tools), and that it tested the resolution in both iOS 5.1 and iOS 6 — and as you can see from the image above, the same resolution in iOS 5.1 merely stretches the four-row set of icons. Obviously this is all still rumor at this point, but with the next iPhone expected to be unveiled in September, we'll see what Apple's really working on soon enough.

Following its rather downbeat quarterly earnings disclosed earlier today, Sharp had one bit of bright news for its near future: the company is about to start shipping out a new iPhone display this month. President Takashi Okuda is quoted by Reuters as delivering the information, which fits neatly into the roadmap that has been built up by the last few weeks of speculation. Sharp, along with LG Display and Japan Display, had already been identified as a likely manufacturer for the next-gen iPhone's display, and the August timing of shipments coincides reasonably well with what we've heard from our own sources about a September 12th launch date for Apple's next flagship phone.

Multiple reports and leaks point to this new display being a 4-inch panel, which will fit into a form factor that looks very much like a vertically stretched iPhone 4 / 4S. The Wall Street Journal has heard from its sources that in-cell technology will also be used to make the display as thin as possible, although that information is not as thoroughly corroborated as everything else we've heard about it so far.

The rumor cycle this time around for the next iPhone has been a bit unusual — multiple leaks have all depicted the exact same components — but it looks like we'll be seeing what Apple has up its sleeves come Wednesday, September 12th. Our own sources familiar with the matter have confirmed that date, and multiple websites have similar reports as well. iMore broke news of the September 12th date earlier today, and AllThingsD's sources have pegged Apple's event for the week of September 9th. It's still not certain what will be announced at the event, but it seems very likely that it will be the next-generation iPhone. AllThingsD points at Apple's prepayment for inventory components — which rose by $1.15 billion last quarter — as evidence that the next iPhone will be announced at the event. According to the report, such a rise has preceded a major product launch, and, of course, the iPhone 4S was announced just last fall. Either way, we suspect we'll be hearing from Apple soon with an official invite.

Typically, the time preceding the launch of a new iPhone is spent trying to decipher which of the many competing hardware "leaks" contains any semblance of truthfulness, but this year everyone seems to agree on one particular redesign. The side-encompassing backplate we've been seeing since late May is back, paired with the front cover that showed up in the first assembled photos of this handset over the weekend. Today, Macotakara has video of the same assembly, giving us the first glimpse of what this enlarged iPhone may look and feel like in the hand.

There are also visuals of some extra parts, including black and white home buttons, though the credibility of the entire thing is still tough to establish since the video itself is titled with a question mark at the end. Even the guys who are leaking the stuff aren't sure it's the real deal — though it certainly looks like it is.

We've heard quite a bit about the "iPhone 5" — or whatever it'll be called — and we've already seen a handful of photos and a video of the supposed next-generation Apple smartphone. Now we're getting a complete picture of the device thanks to Chinese supplier iLab Factory. What's different this time is that the phone is fully assembled in the shots offered by the site. There's nothing terribly surprising, and we'll remain skeptical until Apple reveals the next-generation iPhone, but with so many matching parts appearing from multiple sources it's difficult to discount the device as a fake. As a reminder, the phone pictured is consistent with reports suggesting that Apple's next iPhone will have a smaller, 19-pin dock connector, and a taller, larger screen.

Reuters is reporting that the next iPhone will indeed have a new, smaller 19-pin dock connector port, further corroborating rumors we heard last month. The reason for the change is apparently that the headphone jack will be joining the dock connector port on the bottom of the device, though the iPod touch already uses a similar configuration. Such a move would likely break compatibility with the majority of iPhone and iPod docking devices in the market, but it's possible that they could be used with an adaptor.

Alleged photos of the next iPhone's casing that leaked in May do appear to show space for a headphone jack, so it's looking increasingly likely that you'll have to get used to a whole new hand motion when unpocketing your phone in future. Also noteworthy is that Reuters explicitly calls out the device as the "iPhone 5" — a name we considered less likely following the simple nomenclature of the new iPad.

During Verizon's conference call discussing its Q2 2012 financial performance, CFO Fran Shammo let some information slip out about the next iPhone launch. When asked what might have held customers back from upgrading their devices in Q2, Shammo said that "of course there's always that, uh, rumor mill out there with a new phone coming out there in the fourth quarter, so people may be waiting." While there's a chance that he was referring to the next Nexus phone, this felt more like a thinly-veiled reference to the oft-rumored "new iPhone." A Q4 launch would be in line with what Apple did last year, but most rumors we've heard had it pegged for a September launch. Still, while he blames the rumor mill, we'd expect Verizon's CFO to have a pretty good idea of when the carrier plans to launch Apple's next flagship device.

We've heard rumors that the next iPhone's screen will measure "at least" 4 inches, but Apple may be planning to introduce a new display technology to ensure the screen remains thin. The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple is expected to use in-cell touch display technology, reducing the thickness of a device and ensuring it remains lightweight — perhaps in preparation for an increased screen size. Focus Taiwan originally reported in April that Apple's next-generation iPhone may include in-cell touch panels.