Has former vice-president Al Gore unwittingly revealed Apple’s plans to launch more than one new iPhone in October?
The Next Web reports that Gore, who sits on Apple’s board, made reference to “the new iPhones” that would be launched in October when talking to an audience at the Discovery Invest Leadership Summit in South Africe.
The statement wasn’t clarified, the report says, but would seem to tally with several reports we’ve heard in the past few months about the possibility of there being two new iPhones – an all-singing, all-dancing iPhone 5 and a more basic, iPhone 4-alike, the iPhone 4S.
Analyst Mark Moskowitz of investment bank JP Morgan made such claims earlier this week, saying that the ‘iPhone 4-plus’ may be targeted mainly at the Chinese market, with an iPhone 5 – that will either be based on the iPad 2’s A5 processor or an A6 chip and will be matched up with 1GB of RAM for improved performace – launched in other major territories.
Deutsche Bank’s Chris Whitmore made similar claims back in June, saying that the iPhone 4S could launch exclusively on pre-paid contracts.
Two new iPhone models would explain why we’ve been seeing components that look very similar to those on the current iPhone 4 and mockups of a device that looks to be very different, showing a wider Home button, larger screen, curved edges and a tapered back.
Gore’s reference to “next month” also tallies with what we know about potential launch and announcement dates – just this week, All Things Digital reported that an announcement was likely to happen on Tuesday 4 October.