Thomas Beck

Rumors are rampant surrounding the release of the impending iPhone. As I often find, people are being less than dumb and not seeing what should be obvious. Despite popular opinion, 9to5Mac does not have an exclusive scoop. Here is what I believe Apple will announce on Tuesday.

Name

The iPhone 3GS name was a fluke. They couldn’t name it the iPhone 3 as that would be confusing to consumers after the iPhone 3G. They were able to return to the logical numbering with the iPhone 4, the fourth version released. While I don’t believe they’ll be able to continue indefinitely—would you really want an iPhone 12—and they will eventually drop the numbering entirely, the coming phone will be named the iPhone 5.

Processor

This is their latest and greatest. It powers the iPad 2. It is obvious that the iPhone 5 will use Apple’s A5. The iPhone 4 was powered by the A4, the iPhone 5 will be powered by the A5. Seeing a trend?

Memory

The original iPhone contained 128 MB of RAM. The iPhone 3G wasn’t much of an upgrade other than its namesake and remained 128. The iPhone 3GS doubled that to 256. The iPhone 4 doubled that again and contains 512. Notice a pattern developing? The iPhone 5 will double it’s predecessors memory once again and ship with 1 GB of RAM.

Storage

While I almost hesitate enough not to claim this as obvious, as they have surprised me before, the iPhone 5 will see a storage increase. Following the trend of the aforementioned changes one sees the iPhone went from 4 to 8 to 16 and after Tuesday 32 GB of storage for the base model.

Cameras

Again following the trend of each iteration being slightly better than before the rear-facing camera will be 8 megapixels with other marketing such as better low-light performance. The front-facing camera will take a cue from the recent MacBook updates and be re-dubbed “FaceTime HD”, because obviously it will support HD video chat.

Form Factor

It was no mistake that the 3GS was the same design as it’s immediate predecessor. While I’m no expert in manufacturing, as the new CEO is, I have to believe it is much cheaper to keep the same external appearance for two generations. Thus, the iPhone 5 will if not be exactly the same form factor, be dimensionally equivalent. Apple believes the glass back and antenna design, the two main arguments heard in favor of changing the design, are non-issues.

Voice Control

Do you have an iPhone 4, 3GS, or iPod Touch? Hold down the home button for a few seconds. What happened? Voice Control. Sure it may be surprising that they have partnered with Nuance, but an evolution of Voice Control, let alone how it’s implemented, should surprise none. Go try it now, tell your iPhone “FaceTime [Contact]”.

This all should be obvious to all but the most casual Apple follower. The fun and excitement comes from what is not obvious. But, that is another post.