New iPhone 4S/5 to be Thinner & Smaller According to Orange CEO [Stephane Richard Says Smaller iPhone microSIM Card Is Required by Smaller iPhone 5 Design; Doesn’t Reveal Release Date Yet]

Posted on TFTS by Chris Smith on Monday, 23. May 2011 under: Mobile/Cell Phones

We’re getting closer and closer to WWDC 2011 but the iPhone 4S or iPhone 5, however you want to call it, will not be revealed in June this year. And while we expect for September to get closer to see Apple’s new iPhone get official we’re getting more and more next-gen iPhone-related rumors.

The last iPhone rumor comes from Stephane Richard who happens to be the CEO of one of the most important carrier in Europe, Orange. Well technically he’s the CEO of France Telecom, under which Orange operates.

Stephane Richard talked to All Things D and in his interviewed he revealed that he’s both a fan of the iPhone, although he doesn’t really appreciate the tight grip Apple has on the App Store. Sure he’d probably prefer that all the iPhone handsets that come on Orange would run certain apps right out of the box, although we’re not going to talk today about the crapware carriers tend to offer by default on the smartphones they sell. He’d also probably like Apple not to let certain apps in the App Store in the first place, although that wouldn’t eliminate the carrier’s problems since that’s why jailbreaks are for.

But France Telecom’s CEO didn’t talk just about apps and data as he also referred to Apple’s newest SIM card idea, which happens to be an even smaller microSIM card concept. It seems Apple wants extra space inside the iPhone hence the need for microSIM shrinking. According to Orange the iPhone 4S/5 will be “smaller and thinner” than its predecessors and that’s why Cupertino would like to miniaturize to the max those microSIM cards.

But Stephane Richard can’t and won’t reveal more details about the upcoming iPhone design since that’s definitely something Apple would not appreciate. And considering that iPhones are still selling like hot cakes in worldwide markets, Orange would certainly want to keep selling as many of them in the near future, so upsetting Apple by leaking more iPhone details is probably out of the question.

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