New LTE iPhone 5 to be Available This Fall? Release Date Still Not Confirmed Yet

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Just a few days ago we told you that iOS 5 will be unveiled at WWDC 2011 during the iPhone 5 event and then Apple officially announced the 2011 Worldwide Developers Conference for June 6-10. Apple also officially told us that the iPhone 5 will not be launched at this years’ WWDC event, well not with that many words, but here’s the quote from the official press release:

“At this year’s conference we are going to unveil the future of iOS and Mac OS,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “If you are an iOS or Mac OS X software developer, this is the event that you do not want to miss.”

Naturally Apple could be toying with its fans’ feelings and we might see the iPhone 5 arrive at WWDC 2011, as its predecessor did, and as we initially expected. But the word on the street is that Apple is planning to launch the new iPhone at some point in fall and LTE iPhone 5 rumors and reports have started to emerge again considering this particular launch delay.

Why would Apple delay the arrival of the iPhone 5 in the first place? Well there are at least two reasons to support this decision. First of all, launching a hot device right before the Holiday shopping spree (at some point before Black Friday) would be a killer move. Plenty of people would buy the device in the months before and after Christmas, and since we’re talking about the Holiday season here we can expect customers to spend even more money on iPhone accessories and apps during that time. Ergo, more cash for Apple.

Secondly, the first CDMA iPhone was launched in February, so Apple probably wants to have as much time as possible between the Verizon iPhone 4 release and the iPhone 5 launch.

But what about LTE support? Previous rumors claimed that Apple will only launch a 4G LTE iPhone in 2012, once Verizon’s LTE network becomes even more available to the masses. But Apple might want to have an LTE iPhone 5 out as soon as possible to fight the plethora of hot 4G Android handset that will hit the U.S. carriers this year, whether we’re talking about LTE, WiMAX or HSPA+ devices. And by fall 2011 Verizon could offer LTE to even more subscribers so an LTE iPhone 5 would make plenty of sense. Not to mention that these few extra months could help Apple iron out potential design issues: antenna design, white paint problems and, most importantly, overall performance of the device while on LTE.

Of course these are just speculations for the time being, and, albeit being based on a pretty logical train of thought, it doesn’t mean they’re necessarily right. And with Apple you’ll never know what they’re up to next. We’ll be back with more iPhone 4 and iPhone 5 rumors in the coming months, and we expect plenty of iPhone 5 details to “leak” in the near future, especially if the phone will indeed arrive only in fall 2011. So stay tuned, follow us on Twitter and subscribe to our feed to get all the news delivered to you in a timely manner.