It's early September and there's been no formal announcement of a new iPhone or iPod Touch yet. There hasn't even been any serious indication that an event to announce these products is coming this month. Based on what we know from previous years those products will most likely be running the 1GHz A5 while competitors have already announced phones with 1.4GHz and 1.5GHz dual core processors like the upcoming HTC Amaze 4G. This puts Apple at a serious disadvantage, not only have they neglected to update their product in a year and a half but when they finally do hit they will likely be highly underpowered. The OS optimization argument is still very much in Apple's favor but when their competitors are pushing products 50 percent more powerful does that really matter anymore? Meanwhile on the tablet front products are starting to dip below the $300 price point. It's hard to say if people will stick with a $500 iPad if Amazon releases a $250 Andriod tablet. I've seen several tablets now in the $280-320 price range and while they may be underpowered and have smaller screens ultimately they can accomplish light web browsing and basic tasks at 2/3rds the cost of an iPad. From my perspective it looks like Apple is going to have an incredibly tough time remaining competitive in the near future.
"Formal announcements" come in the form of invites to the media which usually go out 3 days before an event.
I figured the invites went out about a week ahead of time but they're always relayed to the public the second someone gets one. A lot of people are counting on a new iPhone announcement soon, my 3GS is on it's last legs. I'm down to about 4 hours of battery life and it keeps randomly rebooting every few days. iOS 5 might fix those problems but it seems like that's stuck in perpetual beta ATM. One way or another I'm going to need a new phone by early November and it would be a real shame if Apple hasn't updated their product line by then. I also hope to hell that Apple gets it together next year, dragging their feet on their most important product is not good for business. They're going to need to step it up, release an iPad with a retina display, a far more powerful A6 processor and 4G while getting the equivalent phone hardware out in a timely fashion. If they're going to wait this far into the year to announce a new phone it had better be a hell of a lot more impressive spec wise then a 6+ month old iPad.
I worry about their gaming future. Certainly not about their tech future. The third-party software being developed rarely pushes the hardware to its limits. It doesn't matter how hardcore the specs are. The gaming community is not hardcore enough to warrant video game developers creating hardcore games. Sure the iPad may be capable of producing legitimate console quality graphics, but that doesn't mean Epic is ever going to utilize that massive potential by creating a iOS-specific version of Gears of War. I don't think they ever will. The marketplace for dedicated gamers is evaporating before our very eyes. It's being swallowed whole by .99c mini-games, an endless back-catalog of craap shovelware, and, worst of all, $300 freemium apps. It's not looking good for the future of gaming here. 8 out of the top 10 highest grossing apps are, at any one time, usually freemium. Has anyone seen a high-quality freemium game since Eliminate? Most of them resemble Facebook flash games. It's embarrassing. They are produced as cheaply as humanly possible, yet manage somehow to generate a ton of revenue. Half of them are nothing more then a collection of half-assed menus. It's like a bad joke or something. I swear, people who buy this crap must be high.
Why not get a new battery? No iOS update is going to help that one. I am no expert, but it sure seems like this year's iPhone update will be more in line with the 3G => 3GS update, I'd expect a 64GB iPhone with the iPad2's GPU... Yay Moore's Law. (And it's accelerating! ) Gone are the days where people learn the architecture of a system and push it to it's limits, new hardware comes out too fast and languages are getting higher and more abstracted from said hardware. On top of that you have SDKs like Unity and GameSalad (ick)... All that aside, there's no reason why the App Store can't sustain bigger/better/more expensive games - the barrier is not entirely the hardware (the 2GB cap is probably the biggest limitation) but in the market. I remember paying $10 for GTA:CW and thought it was a bargain. Same goes for $15 for Nano Studio or a measly $5 for Carcassonne... Vote with your wallet and buy those big games! Everyone does get hosed a bit by EA & Gameloft's sales though. (I mean, aside from getting some great games FOR A BUCK!)
Although I've never been a huge supporter of the iPad, just wait until full OnLive integration becomes a reality. Then we'll see what happens. At that point, even I would be extremely tempted to purchase an iPad. What Amazon is cooking up is nothing more than a glorified Kindle. Microsoft could be a significant player though. But if they integrate 360 emulation into Windows 8, then I don't see why they would bother with a tablet. That rumor has, of course, not been confirmed, and I cannot fathom it being real. I have no interest in buying an Android tablet either, for which there are many. Gaming would have to be a sigificant consideration for me, purchasing a tabloid, and I don't see the Android marketplace being much of a gaming hub. If I didn't care about video games, there are many decent alternatives to Apple.
It might help, the crashing is due to being jailbroken and I'm fairly certain the extreme battery drain is partially caused by that too. I'm not willing to invest in a new battery for a two year old phone that's going to be replaced soon and I don't want to lose my jailbreak until iOS 5 comes out. iOS 5 covers 2 out if the 4 main reasons I stay jailbroken.
Seriously, the replacement process is very simple and the parts only cost $15- http://www.ifixit.com/iPhone-Parts/iPhone-3G-Replacement-Battery/IF137-002 Alternatively, for a few bucks more you can have someone do it for you with the only real extra cost being shipping both ways. edit: It's $15, that's no more of an "investment" than buying lunch is.
Like anything Apple, there are a ton of rumors - many of which conflict one another. Here is one on CNET that claims Apple is training employees on iOS 5 and the iCloud; an event that usually happens a couple weeks before a new product launch. This apparently has been stated by 9 to 5 Mac as well. But HERE Slashgear claims to have been leaked by Best Buy that "some" Apple fixture might be releasing on Oct 21. So two rumors, a major conflict. So as always take with a grain of salt. But I don't really know what you are worried about to be honest.
Ha, more GameSalad hate. The action with gaming is with casual games. The Wii was a huge success... outselling two platforms with superior hardware specs. Two of the most popular games on iOS are Angry Birds and Doodle Jump... which is not cutting edge technology. One of my favorite iOS games is Hard Lines. That's hardly processor intensive either. The reality is that Apple is more likely to push the hardware further than what's been done before. The iPad 2 is a huge leap over the iPad 1. The iPhone 4 is also a significant improvement over the previous model. The gaming consoles out today are four years old... and I think the 3DS is not as good as an iPhone 4. The iPhone 5 is slow to launch, but nothing in the last year has managed to steal its thunder. If Apple delivers a quality phone by October, which is what the rumors suggest, they can have a solid holiday shopping season. Beyond that, it's like trying to forecast a hurricane.
I think Apples fallen behind quite a bit myself and the next batch need to be more powerful than the Ipad2 because there are already phones that are. The main one being the Galaxy S2 with it's 1.2ghz dual core Exynos soc it's also thinner than the iphone has a better battery and a super amoled + screen. This phone is outselling the iphone in quite a few major countrys like the UK and Australia and a 1.5ghz dual core version with LTE support has already been announced for release. The Iphone 5 not only has to beat that (which is probably unlikely) but be powerful enough to last at least another year of competition. I have to be honest I'm thinking of switching to a Samsung device (probably the Note) myself because I don't like how Apples behaving lately and it's just a better device than anything Apple have. I'd say wait for the Iphone 5 specs and if they don't beat the S2 it's a bad sign for apple.
Not to scare anyone, but you do realize Tim Cook already said that after the 5th Generation of iPhones/iPods and 3rd Generation of iPads that Apple is switching to printers and speakers.
I wouldn't buy anything without knowing the specs and I guess I could just say the Galaxy S2 again since it's the leading handset in the UK and Australia mainly due to it's specs.
Yeah, it's easy to say specs aren't everything (which they aren't) but it's hard to imagine a sub 4" 1GHz dual core phone without 4G is going to survive a full year in this oversaturated market even if it is an iPhone. Andriod has it's problems but the hardware is evolving at a rapid pace. If there's no new hardware by early November I'm going to go the Samsung route myself. I want to stick with iOS but I'm not buying a year and a half old phone to do so.
It's just their marketing strategy - were other companies inaundate you using things like traditional and social media, Apple rely on the frenzy created by the absence of reliable information. And as for processor speeds? I'm not quoting exact figures here, but I work for a phone company that sells the iPhone and I assure you that 99% of the people who ask me every day , "When's the new iPhone coming out?" - Don't care/know about processor speeds. In fact I believe that it's Apple strategy of hiding or at least downplaying this information that makes them so popular with people in the first place.
