New iPhone 5 release date, news and rumours

   Although widely expected, there was no iPhone 5 in 2011 after all, though the company did announce the iPhone 4S.

So we'll surely see a total revision of the iPhone during 2012. We've gathered together all the latest rumours on the new iPhone 5 to give us a reasonable picture of what Apple's latest handset might be like.

You'll find all the rumours below, but why not check out our new iPhone 5 rumours video first?

iPhone 5 release date

iPhone 5 news

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Given the pattern of Apple's iPhone launches, we're expecting the new iPhone 5 release date to be mid to late 2012.

At Apple's WWDC 2012 event in early June we learnt a lot more about iOS 6, but there was no hardware (well, apart from new Macs). Check out the launch news as well as iOS 6: everything you need to know.

We reported in February that the new iPhone would be launched in October, falling into line with the same release schedule from last year - something backed up by the Verizon CFO.

According to analyst Shaw Wu, the Cupertino firm has reduced the number of iPhone orders by 20%-25% for this quarter ahead of the release.

It seems that Foxconn will again be manufacturing the handset. It'll put the Samsung Galaxy S3 "to shame" according to the CEO of Foxconn, Terry Gou - though he didn't say how.

However, a "Taiwan-based supply chain source" told DigiTimes in early May that Chinese firm Pegatron Technology has the iPhone 5 order ahead of a scheduled September launch.

According to the report Pegatron has also received orders for a 10-inch iPad, which is due to launch at the end of this year - which sounds equally spurious.

This does fit in with a mooted August 7 launch date for the iPhone 5, as is currently being quoted by Know Your Mobile through an 'industry source', but we'll wait to see if that actually comes to pass - and it now seems impossible given that actual manufacturing has yet to begin.

And that seems to be 'backed up' by a report from App4phone.fr that the release date of the iPhone 5 will be September 21... although let's be honest, a Chinese accessory maker with no name to the source being quoted by a previously unknown site when it comes to Apple launches isn't the most reliable of sources.

Update: The latest rumour in the huge mill of new iPhone 5 release dates comes from another unknown source (*sigh*) - which claims we'll see Appletake to the stage on September 12 to show off the next handset, alongside the iPad Mini.