Stefan Mileschin

Apple is going to announce its iPhone 5 on September 12.

Of course it has not told anyone that, but Reuters claims that the date has been leaked to the US press so that it can start practising their standing ovations, dribbling and purple prose praise .

The date was pretty much expected. It gives plenty of time for Apple to hype the product before the launch, and then have it in the shops in time for the Christmas rush.

This time the iPhone 5 will at least look a bit different from the earlier machines. It will be thinner, have a larger screen and a smaller dock connector.

It will also have different connections which will mean Apple users will have to scrap all their existing accessories and buy them again.

While the Apple friendly press has started to wax lyrical about how marvellous the iPhone 5 will be, market forces might actually stand against it this time.

Samsung launched its latest Galaxy device in recent months and managed to kill off demand for the iPhone 4S.

This means that a lot of people will have already bought a smartphone before the iPhone 5 comes out. To get people to switch, Apple will have to come up with a fairly interesting gimmick or two. A better one than a thinner phone, at least. It will also have to show that its search engine Siri actually works better than the Google equivalent, because at the moment, it doesn't.

http://news.techeye.net/mobile/apple...n-12-september