iPhone 5 to Be a Simple Refresh

Scores of guesses fill the blogisphere about what Apple’s next iPhone will offer.  I’ve already heard one new rumor saying goodbye to the home button and I could see that happening.  What I do not see coming to the half-decade mark from Cupertino’s finest is anything mind blowing.

Nope, not this year.

Now that the number one complaint about the iPhone has been dealt with — poor service via AT&T — I think the second issue is on the list for attack: battery life.  We’ve seen what Apple did with the iPad and its amazing power life, but sadly, the iPhone doesn’t have that kind of real estate as the “over-sized iPod Touch”.
Lots of talk has been bubbling about battery technology with Apple’s name attached, and I’m fairly certain that Steve Jobs has this issue high on his priority list of getting fixed.  We’ve seen amazing leaps in battery life across the entire spectrum of mobile gadgetry, from the impressive Li-Ion battery cells onboard Apple’s laptops to other devices such as Amazon’s Kindle.
It’s now time for the iPhone to follow suit.

Now don’t worry, we won’t just be wooed by better battery life — there will be more under the hood, too.  You’ll also see a “world phone” where both GSM and CDMA will be supported.  Apple doesn’t want to manufacture two different phones, and this is why it waited so long on bringing the Verizon iPhone.  Apple had to answer the Android onslaught now and thus, temporarily, we have two iPhones.
But come July, there will only be one.

LTE you ask?  Remember, one phone and AT&T hasn’t even taken off the anti-static bags from its LTE radios yet.  LTE will come next year…when a multi-band GSM, CDMA, LTE chip is created…and priced lower than today’s LTE chips.

Let’s see, what else can we hope for?  Mmm, an antenna adjustment to relieve that death grip issue as already seen in the Verizon version (don’t fall for Apple’s marketing spin about CDMA requiring the change.) That loss of the Home button sounds about right.  Oh ya, some more memory, like 64GB on the high end.  Probably a better speaker, too. Oh yes, for the third time, non-smudge glass that maybe might not absorb finger prints as easily as the last four phones.  Speaking of glass, the iPhone 5 will resist cracks better than the 4.  Maybe Bluetooth 3 — though Apple doesn’t seem to really show any affection for it.

So, that’s what I see in the iPhone 5. Better battery life, world phone, more memory, less smudges, no death grip, louder speaker, and possibly cutting edge Bluetooth.  You know, the more I think about it, scratch the Bluetooth 3.0 support.  Well get that next time.