Edible Apple

It’s a sad day, folks. It’s starting to look like all of those alleged iPhone 5 cases will only be useful for housing iPhone prototypes.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has had a great track record with respect to Apple rumors over the past few months and he relays to AppleInsider that Apple’s next-gen iPhone will not feature a revamped form factor. Further, the upgraded iPhones, which at this point we imagine will be dubbed the iPhone 4S, will sport the same amount of RAM – 512 MB.

The so-called “iPhone 5” is also expected to have an improved antenna design, potentially addressing concerns that arose last year when it was discovered that covering the bottom left corner of the iPhone 4 could reduce reception. Though the antenna will be improved, Kuo indicated there will be little change to its shape, and users will not see a discernible difference in its appearance.

Dubbed “N94,” the new iPhone model will reportedly also use the same Gorilla glass for its back panel. Kuo also said it will be available in both black and white models at launch, and 60 percent of units assembled so far have been of the black variety.

So will this be a worthy upgrade?

Well, in addition to a redesigned antenna, some other goodies allegedly include an A5 dual core processor an 8 megapixel camera and, of course, Apple’s upcoming iOS 5.

Kuo notes Apple plans to build 30 million next-gen iPhones and that Foxconn will be tasked with manufacturing 25.5 million of them. The other 4.5 million units, which amounts to 15% of the total iPhone throughput, will reportedly be handled by Pegatron.

So assuming that Kuo’s report is accurate, there might only be 1 new iPhone announced this September.

Now, the iPhone 4 was an A+ upgrade, as Steve Jobs famously stated, so it’s understandable that the next iteration would be more akin to the iPhone 3G to iPhone 3GS bump which was essentially a spec upgrade. Still, given the delays surrounding Apple’s fifth generation iPhone, the hype and buzz has had more time to simmer, grow, and have an unhealthy influence on our expectations.

All that aside, if Apple is able to sell all 30 million of the iPhones it plans on manufacturing, it would mark Apple’s most successful iPhone quarter in company history. Apple’s previous quarterly iPhone record is 20.34 million units which it recorded during the June quarter of 2011 – a remarkable achievement considering the iPhone 4 had already been out for a year at that point.

via AI