Yesterday, Apple announced that it will live stream an Apple Event on Tuesday, October 13 at 10 Pacific / 1 Eastern. Apple didn’t say what it will be announcing but we all know that the focus will be the 2020 version of the iPhone. The last time that Apple announced a new iPhone in October was the iPhone 4s, announced on October 4, 2011. (That was the iPhone that first added Siri.) From 2012 to 2019, Apple announced new iPhone models every September so that there would be plenty of time to get them into the market for the end-of-the-year holiday buying season. This year, on the other hand … well, we all know what affect the year 2020 has had on normality. Apple alerted everyone in early August that the new iPhone would come out a little later this year, and here we are.
The invitation for the Apple Event features the phrase “Hi, Speed.”
I presume that is a reference to the next iPhone being faster, not only because of the new A14 processor (that we heard about last month in the new iPad Air (4th generation)), but also because many expect this to be the first iPhone to work with the new 5G networks. So far, most of the reports that I have seen is that 5G is not yet ready for prime time — it is a big drain on battery life, it is sometimes slower than 4G, and it is only available in limited areas. It will be interesting to see if the 5G version of the iPhone has these same shortcomings.
By the way, if you visit this page on Apple’s website using a modern iPhone or iPad and tap on the graphic in the middle of the page, you will see an interesting AR/VR advertisement for the event.