iPhone 5 Release Rumors Hit iPhone 4S Sales: How Apple’s Upcoming Super Phone Will Outdo 4S

iPhone 5 Concept - Design by Federico Ciccarese — Ciccarese's iPhone 5 concept design is beautiful when you can see it, but when it's turned off, the brilliant Apple logo shines bright through the darkness. Apple should seriously consider adding this gorgeous feature. Courtesy

Sales of the exising line of Apple iPhones including the latest 4S will decline in the next few months until the company unleashes its much-anticipated and exponentially hyped iPhone 5. The next generation iPhone is expected to be released in June/October.

Looking at the unremitting demand generated by the iPhone 5, it is expected that Apple's first LTE-enabled smartphone will ramp up Apple's smartphone sales figure in the first quarter of 2013.

The drop in the sales of a particular device is nothing new at a time when an upgraded version is expected to hit the market. A sales drop has taken place every time during the last few months of an iPhone product cycle. Apple's fourth quarter report showed sales fell short of expectations of 17.07 million units. The reason for the decline was -- as analysts pointed out -- the unseemly hype over the new model iPhone.

That quarter saw a 2.4-million-unit drop in sales of other iPhone models sequentially on a sell-through basis, which was actually less than the company had anticipated. The drop reached its peak in the second half of the quarter as speculation surrounding the iPhone 4S hit the highest point.

As it turned out, when iPhone 4S, not iPhone 5 as rumored, was launched, all the pent-up demand drove sales to new highs, with over four million units being sold in the opening weekend. The soaring sales helped the Cupertino-based tech giant to improve its first quarter sales and the company showed a record quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion and record quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion, or $13.87 per diluted share.

Right now, the rumor mill is working overtime and expectations about the next iPhone have peaked. The so-called iPhone 5 will, in all probability, be launched in October, targeting the festive season. The device is certain to boost Apple's quarter one sales in 2013.

Apple enthusiasts beleive that iPhone 5 will be an LTE-enabled phone and that it will bring to the market some ground-breaking features. But how exactly will it outdo the 4S, which was Apple's first smartphone to feature Retina Display and Siri voice dictation features?

Let's check out how Apple has made its new generation phone better than its predecessor. iPhone 5 features, are mostly rumored but we have taken into account specifications which are most likely to be seen in the phone.

Bigger Screen

Although Apple launched its revolutionary Retina Display with iPhone 4S, with iPhone 5 it will increase the screen size, Apple lovers expect.

Until now no iPhone has had a bigger than 3.5-inch screen, and 4S is not an exception to Apple's predicatble outlook regarding the screen size. But now that all smartphone makers are coming with bigger size screens (at times some odd 5-inch screen), this time we hope to see a bigger iPhone screen.

According to a recent Reuters report, Apple would make its next generation iPhone bigger with a 4.6-inch display. But Brian White of Topeka Capital Markets rejected the report saying the next-gen iPhone could sport a 4-inch display. The same claim was echoed by iMore editor-in-chief Rene Ritchie who said on April 5 that iPhone 5 would retain its original 3.5-inch screen.

Retina Display

According to some sources, iPhone 5 would feature a Quantum Dot LED curved glass edge-to-edge display with 1280 x 720 resolutions with 367ppi.

iPhone 4S, on the other hand, sports a 3.5-inch LED-backlit IPS TFT, capacitive touchscreen with 960 x 640 pixels resolution and 330 ppi pixel density.

3D Camera

iPhone 4S touts an 8 mega pixel iSight camera that comes with custom lens with a larger f/2.4 aperture. The phone features an improved backside illumination sensor, excellent auto white balance, advanced color accuracy, face detection and reduced motion blur.

All these features, however, will fall short in comparison to iPhone 5's rumored 3D camera, which will capture light and image information in a way that would create an incredible 3D image that can be seen without glasses.

Patently Apple has reported that Apple has recently invented a killer 3D Imaging Camera for iOS Devices. This 3D camera will apply to both still photography and video. While 3D is no more a revolutionary technology in mobile devices, Apple is expected to tweak it and make it something new in iPhone 5.

According to Apple, the existing 3D cameras and video records can get three-dimensional information from objects but they are incapable of getting detailed information of the shapes, surfaces and depth of the objects. By using multiple sensors and cameras, Apple plans to use a series of systems, tools and methods to capture a 3D image and capture its geometric information relating to the surfaces of objects.

Meanwhile, South Korean product designer Jinyoung Choi has suggested that Apple might sport a digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) lens mount on the back of the iPhone, a dream feature for professional-grade photography.

4G LTE

Since the new iPad 3 was launched with the 4G support, it is expected that the iPhone 5 will come with radio bands for 4G LTE support. And, to make its iPhone LTE enabled, Apple has to make the device a little thicker to accommodate a larger circuit board and a bigger battery.

This was the reason why Apple rejected the plan of implementing 4G LTE in its iPhone 4S. Apple CEO Tim Cook, in a company earnings conference call in April 2011, said, First-generation LTE chipsets force a lot of design compromises.

Better Processor and Better RAM

Apple iPhone 4S features dual-core 1 GHz Cortex-A9 processor with PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU, Apple A5 chipset and 512 MB RAM. Apple faced criticism for keeping the same A5 for its updated version of iPhone 4. The company, however, has already launched a tweaked version of A5, dubbed as A5x in its newly released iPad.

The Verge has reported that the next iPhone will see the introduction of the rumored A6 processor that will clock in at superfast 1.2 to 1.5 GHz with 1GB or more of RAM to offer amazing processing capabilities to the smartphone.

Siri Vs Improved Siri

Siri was indeed a revolutionary technology, but a flawed one at that. While we celebrated the launch of Siri in Apple iPhone 4S, we expect a better version of Siri in iPhone 5 with additional language support like Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian and Spanish.

Bigger Battery

Currently iPhone 4S Li-Po 1420 mAh battery gives up to 8 hours of talk time on 3G and up to 14 hours on 2G (GSM). Given that iPhone 5 will come with a HD display and powerful apps, it is highly probable that the Cupertino giant will pack in a better battery with it.

Operating System

iPhone 4S runs on Apple's latest iOS 5 operating system while it is expected that iPhone 5 will feature the new iOS 6 , which will be released alongside the phone.

Other Features that will give advantage to iPhone 5