rumors are starting to be authenticated by multiple internal sources,
and they are getting very detailed and more or less consistent with each
other:
Oct 4th iPhone 5 announcement (also an iPhone 4s based on the iPhone 4).
This will not happen at the usual venues (Yerba Buena, Moscone Center)
but at Apple HQ in Cupertino to a much smaller audience.
Oct 14th iPhone 5/4s on sale date. Foxconn has been pumping out 150,000
iPhone 5's a day now for weeks and they're being staged for a US/UK
simultaneous release.
Latest rumors say it's going to be taller, wider, and thinner than
iPhone 4, with a dual-core Apple A5 processor (from iPad 2) and 1GB of
RAM (twice what iPad 2/iPhone 4 has). It's going to have a new 8 MP
camera with a backlit sensor capable of consumer camera level photos,
even in low light. It may be ditching the back glass in favor of a CNC'd
aluminum chassis like the MacBook Air. It's going to run the new iOS 5
which is expected to go "gold master" this week at the same time Apple
wipes the developer beta accounts in iCloud to launch the whole bundle
simultaneously.
As you can see, these are rumors but they are very specific and pouring
out now. It's very hard to hide a product when you are making a million
a week of them.
Much cool new stuff, but over and over I keep hearing that the killer
feature of iPhone 5 is expected to be the new natural voice command
technology, which will only run on iPhone 5 due to the processing power
and memory it requires. Apple bought the natural language speech company
Siri in April 2010, and they have completed integration of the Siri code
into iPhone 5 and from what I've heard it's nothing short of
game-changing technology.
iPhone 5 will have the capability to take voice commands, but not in the
crude waveform format of previous phones. You will be able to talk in
native language and the recognition is said to be highly accurate. And
it's hard coded into every aspect of the OS, from the calendar to web to
the maps application. Here are some examples:
"Schedule an appointment with Fred at one-thirty PM tomorrow" and the
phone will create an appointment on your calendar.
"Remind me to buy milk when I get to Whole Foods Market" and location
services will pop up a reminder when your phone's GPS chip indicates
that you have arrived at the location.
"Where is Starbucks?" and the phone will find the nearest Starbucks
using the maps app and your current location and tell you how to get
there.
"Send a text message to Heather saying 'Hi honey!'" and, well, you
guessed it. The phone will even read back your text before it is sent to
make sure it's correct if you like.
"Tweet 'I hate going to the dentist'", and it sends the tweet out to the
world.
"What is the cube root of 324?". You may recognize this from my post
about WolframAlpha. Yes, access to that knowledge engine is embedded
into iOS 5. Got a question any time of the day or night? Just ask and
one of 500 scientists will send an answer.
There is also a feature called "Find my Friends" which, if your friend
agrees to let you have access to their location data and carries an
iPhone/iPad, will go something like this: "Where is Jason Jones?" and
the phone will tell you where he is at that very moment. I imagine this
would be a great feature for a limited amount of people you know. Like a
wife or husband or best friends. I know Facebook is just now working on
a feature that will pop up a message like "Three of your friends are at
the Black Lotus, 1 mile away" on your phone. Privacy? It's eroding every
day and I guess we're all ok with it.
Along with the voice recognition comes a way for your phone to
communicate back to you in a sort of chat-like format. If you tell the
phone to do something and it needs further clarification, it will tell
you. Say for example you ask it to find a Starbucks, it may ask you back
which one of several you want to go to.
If you haven't used a really good voice recognition application lately,
you'll be amazed at how far they've come. Apple also has a joint venture
with the world leader in recognition software, Nuance, the creators of
Dragon Dictation, and Nuance technology is also woven through iOS 5.
From what I understand, the Nuance engine decodes your voice into
something the Siri engine can work with to extract meaning.
There are also new rumors (yesterday) about implementation of Facebook
to match the deep Twitter integration in iOS 5. The same rumor said
Facebook will finally launch the iPad app along with a completely
redesigned iPhone version.
We'll see, but one thing is for sure...it won't be long. Then we can
start up the iPhone 6 rumors!
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