The latest news on the iPhone 4.0 front is pretty sparse. Software wise we don’t know a whole lot. Similarly, the hardware side of things is equally cloudy. Over the last month, we’ve heard rumblings of iPhone 4.0 being spied online via various analytics tracking software. With Apple’s latest iPhone 3.1.3 update, we can now see at least say we know something about the new iPhone hardware.
It’s code name is “N89″. How do we know? Well, we don’t. But judging by past internal naming structures — M68, N82, and N88 (iPhone, 3G, and 3GS respectively) — I’d say calling the N89 the iPhone 4.0 isn’t too far fetched.
Looking at the naming structure, assuming that the model number has at least some small correlation with differences in hardware, will the N89/iPhone 4.0 be that much different than the current iPhone 3GS? I mean, the N89 is but one small number higher than the 3GS’s code name. As you can see from the first gen iPhone’s “M68″ moniker to the iPhone 3G’s N82, there was a big jump in numbering (and lettering) from one model to the next. The subsequent jump from 3G to 3GS was smaller as the hardware wasn’t much different. So is it right to assume the iPhone 4.0 will be even less significant?
It’s hard to swallow that seeing how much the market has changed even since last year. The iPhone software is still one of, if not the best in terms of usability in the mobile OS sphere. Will all the talk and rumors of upgraded cameras, processors, RAM, graphics chips, etc., it’s almost impossible to think that Apple would do another minor update like they did with the 3GS.
Of course, there could be absolutely no correlation between code name and actual features whatsoever. In that case, this entire post is useless. Though I’m leaning m ore towards bigger changes, regardless of what th einternal number codes suggest. With 1GHz Snapdragon smartphones popping up left and right, Apple can’t really afford not to bring the heat this summer.
What do you think? Are there big changes coming with the iPhone 4.0 hardware or is it going to be one of those evolutionary tales instead of revolutionary yet again?
February 3, 2010 at 4:15 pm
i dout theres gonna b a 1 ghz iphone bc thats whats in the ipad that would make the ipad look slow may be another custom chip from apple
February 3, 2010 at 9:17 pm
I understand your reasoning. At the same time, I’d hope Apple would understand that artificially limiting a product as to prevent “self competition” is a terrible idea. We’ll see soon enough though.