Apple, which is riding high on the smartphone cloud, may debut its next mobile operating system, iOS 5 along with iPad 3 before Christmas.
The Cupertino major has been reportedly working on developing a smaller, cheaper version of the iPhone 4 for emerging markets. The iPhone 5 will supposedly host a powerful A5 processor just like the iPad 2 with an 8-megapixel camera and may release in September.
On the other side, Apple is testing a third-generation iPad with higher resolution than the iPad 2, something closer to the pixel density on the iPhone 4's 3.5-inch, 960x640 screen. Reports indicate that the iPad 3 might be available by the end of this year.
A Boy Genius Report confirmed that the next iPhone would be a complete version upgrade rather than a minor update. Another finding indicated that the next iPhone would have a "radical" new shape.
AppleInsider reported that Apple was withholding the next iPhone and iPod Touch until it finalized a bundled version of iOS 5 and iCloud. As far as timing of the next iPhone's launch, last week Apple began selling an unlocked, unsubsidized iPhone 4, immediately fueling speculation that Apple was purposely creating a high-cost barrier on the year-old iPhone 4 so people would wait and eventually purchase a subsidized fifth-generation iPhone this fall.
Supposedly, the iPhone 5 will pose an edge-to-edge screen with a mini micro SIM card. There's little doubt that Apple is working on including mobile payment technology in its future iPhones, but the question of whether it'll adopt the industry standard, known as near-field communication (NFC) is still up for debate.
A fall 2011 debut for the iPad 3 seems premature, however, for several reasons.
