The iPhone 5 won’t see release date until a full year after the iPhone 4S launch, the logic goes, because new iPhone models are always around for exactly a year and because Apple always goes through two iterations of each iPhone body style for a year each before moving on to something new. But that logic, while widely believed, it flawed on both ends. The first was once true: Apple routinely released a new iPhone each summer from 2007 to 2010, creating an expectation that it would do so again in the summer of 2011 and shocking many would-be customers when the anniversary came and went with nary a peep. The iPhone wasn’t ultimately updated until October of this year, after the iPhone 4 was on the market for sixteen months, thus ending Apple’s era of consistent annual iPhone launches. That means the iPhone 5 release date could come at any time in 2012, as Apple is no longer on its annual release schedule and could take corrective action in any manner it wants. And now the other half of the logic goes faulty as well, the part about the iPhone 4S having been part of the plan Reports surfaced this week confirming what seemed to be the case all along: Apple had been aiming for a summer 2011 release for the iPhone 5, kept pushing it back because it wasn’t ready yet, and only launched the iPhone 4S as its new “flagship” iPhone model in October because it felt like it needed an updated hardware model heading into the holiday shopping season and because new technologies like the A5, Siri, and iOS 5 were ready for launch even if the iPhone 5 itself wasn’t. That means the notion that Apple “always” does two iterations of each phone, a popular one despite the fact that Apple has only ever done it on purpose once (3G and 3S), wasn’t the case this year. Apple was looking to do an entirely new iPhone, couldn’t pull it off in time, and went with a rehash as a fallback. In that light, it makes one wonder if the 3GS wasn’t a result of the same fallback scenario rather than having been any part of any intended gameplan. And if the iPhone 4S wasn’t even supposed to exist, or was supposed to be merely a bargain sidekick to debut alongside the real iPhone 5 this year, then by Apple’s clock, the iPhone 5 is overdue already. Even if it’s somehow ready to go before the end of 2011, that won’t happen. It’s too close to the holiday season, and Apple has already tagged the iPhone 4S as its flagship holiday product. But all bets are off once 2012 arrives, and Apple starts looking at launching the iPhone 5 as early in the year as it’s ready to go. That still doesn’t predict whether the iPhone 5 will be ready from a technical standpoint by the spring, or the summer, or the fall. But with no remaining allegiance to annual launches, and with the revelation that the iPhone 5 is already four months late to market according to Apple’s own calendar, there’s no reason to expect the iPhone 4S to get a full twelve months in the spotlight unless the iPhone 5 simply isn’t ready any sooner.
