Amidst iPhone 5 Hype Comes a Smaller, Cheaper 8GB iPhone 4

Apple has sent Korean manufacturers new orders for a smaller 8GB iPhone 4 according to sources who have not revealed their identity.

Accompanying the rumors of the long awaited iPhone 5, are those for a baby iPhone, that will come with an 8GB flash drive made by a Korean company rumored to be Samsung. Some analysts said the cheaper iPhone 4 could help Apple boost sales in emerging markets, Reuters reported.

Rumors about a smaller iPhone four first emerged in February following a report in Bloomberg that said a device half the size and price of the iPhone 4 would be released by the summer.

Apple may want to push into the emerging market segment where customers want to switch to low- to mid-end smartphones from high-end feature phones, which usually cost $150-200, said Yuanta Securities analyst Bonnie Chang, Reuters reported.

At the same time the Wall Street Journal reported that the smaller iPhone would be significantly lighter than the iPhone 4 and have an edge-to-edge screen that could be manipulated by touch, as well as a virtual keyboard and voice-based navigation.

The most recent report in Reuters said while the next iPhone is rumored to have a significally different look, the changed will only be a slightly modified version of the iPhone 4, which could be called iPhone 4s of iPhone5.

Last week an ATT&T VP was reported to have said that the new iPhone would be launched at the beginning of October.