On recent meeting with media: According to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is set to build and
ship more than
30 million of its next-generation iPhone 5 handsets by
the end of the year. Kuo believes that Apple is capable of reaching this
target due to the anticipation and hype that’s building around the
iPhone 5, which has yet to be announced or confirmed by Apple, but is
largely expected to be shipping in October.
Kuo believes that the iPhone 5 will ship with the same amount of RAM
memory as the
iPhone 4 – 512 MB – and that the design, which features a
glass front and back, will remain largely the same. It’s also rumored
that the iPhone 5 will ship with a completely
redesigned antenna system,
which caused a huge PR nightmare for Apple during the launch of the
iPhone 4. It was discovered by users and media outlets that the cellular
reception of the iPhone 4 could be drastically reduced by covering the
bottom left and right corners of the iPhone 4 with a hand. Apple ended
up giving users a free ‘bumper’ case to offset the antenna issues, but
with a new phone comes the opportunity to fix the issue..

The iPhone 5, which has been dubbed the ‘N94’ handset, will
apparently also make use of Corning’s Gorilla Glass for its front and
back panels. Kuo is confident that the iPhone 5 will come in both white
and black, and that both colors will ship at launch. According to his
sources, Kuo indicates that about sixty percent of the iPhone 5 handsets
built so far have been black, with the remaining designed in white.
It’s widely known that China-based manufacturer Foxconn is handling
almost all of the iPhone 5 assembly duties, with Pegatron picking up the
remaining fifteen percent to help boost Apple’s launch and delivery
capacity.
If Kuo is correct and Apple somehow does manage to deliver
30 million
iPhone 5 handsets to users around the world before the end of the 2011
calendar year, they will be smashing their own iPhone sales records. To
date, the best quarter that Apple has had was the second quarter of
2011, which saw Apple shipping just over 20 million handsets through the
end of June.
The report also alluded to an improved rear camera coming with the
iPhone 5. Rumors have speculated that the camera will be an
8 megapixel
module built by Sony, and may or may not feature an LED flash on the
opposite side of the handset from the lens which is meant to reduce
red-eye artifacts in photos. Kuo believes that the size of the rear
camera lens and circuitry is one of the major reasons that the iPhone 5
will have a similar design to its predecessor, but with the rumor mill
working furiously to try to determine what the iPhone 5 is all about,
this could change.
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