Apple's iPhone 5S in Aug, new iPads in April ~ Technology Update

The release dates for the iPhone 5S and iPad have been revealed and one does not have to wait for long. According to latest reports Apple might unveil its annual upgraded version of the iPad in April itself. The iPhone5S and a less expensive version will be released three months later, but will only be available for retail by August.

Meanwhile, if a Japanese blog Mocatakra is to be believed, Apple fans may not even need to wait till August, as Foxconn has already started the production process of the new phone.

Apple Iphone 5s or 6

KGI Securities in its latest research report says the iPhone5S will launch in July and will be equipped with a finger print sensor. The tech giant is also expected to announce a budget iPhone as it plans to take on increasing competition from Samsung.

Samsung is scheduled to announce the S4 on March 14 and is expected to come up with an eye tracking sensor that can automatically scroll down documents and pages. The iPhone5 was released in September 2012, but Apple cannot afford to wait too long.

Although Iphone5 has emerged as the top selling phone and continues to lead the smartphone sales across the world, the competition is heating up. Sony’s new Xperia Z, HTC’s new revamped HTC One and LG’s new Optimus G, all of which were received favorably during this Mobile World Congress, are expected to eat into the market share and emerge as serious competitors to the top three in the list Apple, Samsung and Nokia.

The current year is expected to witness a record number of new smartphone launches even as sales are expected to increase and overtake feature phones.

According to an IDC forecast, more smartphones will ship in 2013 marking the first time this has happened over a 12-month period. The company said that vendors will ship 918.6 million smartphones this year, or “50.1 per cent” of total mobile phone shipments worldwide. With no major design enhancements scheduled for the iPhone5S, Apple can not wait too much longer to release its improvised gadget for 2013.

It was KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo who first revealed that the iPhone 5S could launch in July. According to him the reason for an early launch could be to avoid a similar mistake done last year with the iPhone5 compared to Samsung Galaxy S3.

“It is an effort to avoid repeating the fatal mistake of last year of the delayed iPhone 5 launch, which gave competitors room to grab market share.”

According to him, the new phone will not have any major design changes when compared to the iPhone 5, which incorporated several key changes.

Tech blog iMore later confirmed the timing, but said fans will have to wait until August for the phones to hit the market.

Apple is expected to bring out the new phone with an increased processor (A7) a smartflash for a better camera performance and also incorporate fingerprint recognition technology. The latter was initially expected to be included in the iPhone5 itself.

Meanwhile, reports quoting Ken Segall, a former Apple consultant has reveled that Apple had contemplated naming the iPhone as Mobi, TriPod, TelePod, and even iPad. In 2007 when Apple launched the iPhone, Cisco had used the name iPhone for its VoIP phone.

"The funny thing is that all these names actually were considered and iPad was in fact one of them; that's the most amazing [thing]," Segall said. "Had they called the iPhone an iPad, then who knows what the iPad would be."