iPhone 5 Prepped For Third Quarter 2011, Suppliers Say

Tipsters Dish About Next iPhone

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple is readying a new iPhone (aka iPhone 5 or iPhone 4S) for launch in the third quarter of 2011.

Apple plans to build 25 million units before the end of the year, a tipster at one of the Asia-based companies supplying component parts to Apple told WSJ. Suppliers will reportedly ship their parts to assembly factories in August.

"Apple's sales estimates of the new iPhone is quite aggressive," the source said.

Indeed, Apple Insider notes, Apple seems to be expecting higher-than-ever demand in the near future.

"If accurate, the 25 million build total for 2011 would suggest that Apple expects its iPhone sales to continue to grow with the launch of the fifth-generation model," writes Apple Insider. "In its previous fiscal quarter, the company sold a record 18.65 million iPhones, including both the iPhone 4 and previous-generation iPhone 3GS."

Other suppliers told the Journal that the new device will be "thinner and lighter than the iPhone 4 and sport an 8-megapixel camera" and will be built around a Qualcomm wireless baseband chip.

The next device's Q3 launch isn't a sure thing, though. One source warned that assembly could take longer than expected, causing Apple to miss the target launch date, because the slim new device is "complicated and difficult to assemble."

Most rumors have stated that the next iPhone will feature only minor upgrades to the current iPhone 4, with a revamped unit thought to be arriving in 2012.

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