iPhone 5 Release Date This Fall, iPhone 5 Domination in 2013 - Spacelab

The latest on the iPhone 5 release date comes from Mark Moskowitz, and there's talk of a late-in-the-year iPhone 5 release that will drive it to be the biggest smartphone in 2013. The iOS6 release date is quickly becoming the favorite time to coincide with an iPhone 5 release date, although they don't necessarily have to happen on exactly the same date. iOS6 could predate the iPhone release, and give an opportunity to still include it on the new phone.
The big comment drop of the week came from J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz, who said "We think that a combination of revolutionary hardware enhancements and software-driven services (i.e., Passbook, Maps, FaceTime over cellular) stand to reaffirm the iPhone as the leading smartphone in 2013." Although there's no mention of a specific month or time as the real iPhone 5 release date, he’s building on the notion that Apple will release it sometime in the Fall as it did last year. The leading consensus for this year is that the iPhone 5 release date will follow a similar route, with Apple announcing the iPhone 5 at a presentation in the Fall, leading to an iPhone 5 release in time for holiday shopping. Apple sold 37.04 million iPhones in the final quarter of last year, after its introduction in October.

This dovetails nicely with comments from Pacific Crest analyst Andy Hargreaves. Forbes reported that Hargreaves thinks there will be “'extraordinary demand' for Apple products through fiscal 2013. He thinks the company is likely to be supply constrained on iPhone 5 for the first several months after launch, 'which will likely make Apple’s ability to ramp supply the key driver of FY 2013 earnings.'” I guess the big question with both of these comments is do they know something about the IPhone 5 release date that we don't, or are they just reviewing the same materials as the rest of us and throwing their comments out there?

Current iPhone 5 rumors  include near-field communication (NFC), a  smaller dock connector and a bigger screen size that is estimated to be about 4 inches. The new iPhone dock connector has been confirmed by CNET saying "TechCrunch has independently verified that Apple is working on adding a 19-pin port, replacing the current 30-pin port, to the new iPhone." Other iPhone 5 rumors include a bigger phone (to compete with the Galaxy S3, as well as a trend that is hitting smartphones this year in an attempt to bridge the gap between a phone with a too-small screen size as well and a medium-sized tablet. As long as the phone stays portable, I see this as a good trend, whether it's an iPhone 5 feature or not. The iPhone 5 rumor for near-field communication  was raised by TechCrunch, who said “Google is now shipping 1 million NFC-enabled Android devices every week,” which adds upt o a whopping 15% of Android devices. Near Field Communication is the ability of two iPhones to communicate with each other without the use of Wi-Fi, as long as their near each other. This . Apple would need to make thisiPhone 5 rumor surfaced a few weeks ago as a feature called Airdrop an iPhone 5 feature to compete, and looks like prerequisite instead of a nice to have.

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