Latest iPhone 5 rumor: October release, 8 megapixel camera

It’s another week and another iPhone 5 rumor. (Better get used to it, too, looks like the trend may continue throughout the summer.) This one comes from Ming-Chi Kuo of Concord Securities as reported by AppleInsider. The analyst issued a note today stating that Apple’s 5^th generation iPhone will enter into production in September and will feature a design that only marginally differs from the current iPhone 4.

That “slight” redesign will include an A5 processor, the same found in the iPad 2, and a new 8 megapixel camera, a bump up from the 5 megapixel camera found in the iPhone 4. Apple will also reportedly redesign the phone’s antenna and adopt a Qualcomm baseband for both the GSM and CDMA models.

Kuo’s report states that the phone is slated to enter trial production in August, mass production in September and will be go on sale sometime in October.

Kuo stresses that, given the “slight modifications” in design, Apple will attempt to focus attention on the iPhone 5’s operating system, presumably iOS 5, rather than hardware or design.

There’s no indication yet when Apple will announce the iPhone 5, but it’s not likely to be at this year’s World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC)– Apple’s traditional event for announcing its next generation phone. Apple is expected to use WWDC , which kicks off on June 6, to show off iOS 5 as well as the OS X 10.7 Lion operating system. An iPhone 5 announcement would likely come in late summer or early fall.

Kuo’s report made no mention of near-field communication (NFC) technology, which has been widely anticipated as being a key feature of the next generation iPhone.

There’s good reason to believe Kuo’s report. As AppleInsider points out, the man correctly predicted several key features of the iPad 2. He’s also indicated that Apple would finally release the white iPhone 4 this spring — one rumor that we’re still waiting on to become a reality.

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