We're just a handful of months away from Apple's usual summer launch for updated iPhone hardware. With Apple busy keeping up with demand for both the GSM and newly launched CDMA versions of the iPhone 4, we thought it would be worthwhile to look at what we might see inside the next-gen iPhone unveiled at WWDC this summer.
As far as the form factor is concerned, we don't expect to see radical (if any) changes in the fifth-generation iPhone's exterior. Apple hardly changed the design of the iPhone from the original to the 3G, and not at all for the 3GS. The iPhone 4—despite gripes with the antenna design and front and rear glass covers—has generally been a solid and well-received design. And the company is just now getting around to figuring out how to reliably make a white one.
Additionally, the iPhone 4's 3.5" Retina display is still one of the sharpest and highest resolution displays available on any mobile phone, and the iPhone 4's 5MP backside-illuminated camera is the best on any smartphone we've evaluated. We expect these to remain unchanged.
Instead, we believe Apple will focus on internal upgrades for the iPhone 5, like it did with the 3GS. Three key improvements that have been hinted at in the last couple of months include a next-generation mobile processor, a move to dual-mode GSM/CDMA baseband processors from Qualcomm, and the addition of near-field communication hardware.
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The updated processor, currently dubbed A5, will likely include two ARM Cortex A9 cores running at 1GHz or higher. The chip is also expected to have a more recent iteration of the Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX graphics core, which has a baseline 40 percent performance improvement over the older Power VR SGX used in Apple's A4 processor. Depending on power requirements and process size, Apple may even include two graphics cores for an even bigger boost in graphics power. Both the processor and graphics cores would be OpenCL-compatible, enabling developers to more easily leverage the various cores for performance improvements.
Apple will also likely include dual-mode Qualcomm baseband chips, like the MDM6600 used in the current CDMA-compatible iPhone 4 on Verizon. This would replace previous GSM-only Infineon chips, allowing Apple to leverage larger volumes across all iPhones.
We hope Apple uses the dual-mode chip to create a single iPhone model that is compatible with both types of networks. Doing so would likely require some additional antenna tuning, as well as adding a SIM card slot to the basic design Apple used for the CDMA iPhone 4. Apple could also move to an embedded, programable SIM module inside the phone, negating the need for an externally accessible SIM slot, though carriers haven't been very receptive to the idea.
However, iSuppli analyst Wayne Lam suggested that Apple might instead use the same Qualcomm chip with slightly different logic board designs, and continue to sell different models for GSM and CDMA networks as it does now. This option gives Apple the freedom to tune the antennas separately for the different networks as needed, instead of trying to design them to work across both network types.
Apple is also rumored to be including near field communications (NFC) radio hardware across its mobile product line. NFC would enable a next-gen iPhone to act as a credit card or transit system pass, and would be able to pull data from RFID-tagged posters and ads. It could also enable easier peer-to-peer communication between iDevices and other NFC-equipped smartphones, or might more easily connect an iPhone to "smart" NFC-enabled accessories.
Other components that could see improvement are the vibrator module and battery. The new CDMA iPhone 4 contains both a "smoother" vibrator motor and a slightly lighter battery, which would likely be used in this summer's expected update.
Some tech circles have questioned why consumers would pounce on a Verizon iPhone 4 (or even a white iPhone 4) when an updated model is likely just months away, but we don't believe those buying iPhone 4s in the coming weeks will feel like they should have waited. It will likely be some time before the expected internal updates are leveraged by developers in such a way that the iPhone 4 is seen as a performance detriment—perhaps in time for a more radical "iPhone 6" revision in 2012.
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