Should I Wait to Buy My Next iPhone?

By Lance Ulanoff2013-05-11 20:59:15 UTC

Back in the summer of 2011, I bought an iPhone 4. Yup, that’s right, just three months before Apple unveiled iPhone 4S and Siri, I plunked down $200 for yesterday’s technology. In my defense, I was changing jobs and needed a phone ASAP. iPhone was my first choice.

Fast-forward to today and I’m now eligible for an iPhone 5 upgrade. That’s good news, since I’ve tested the iPhone 5 and am impressed. So why don’t I just run out now and get it? You know why. I keep wondering, how soon before the next iPhone?

For as good as the iPhone is, it’s no longer the new smartphone on the block and has been eclipsed in functionality by competitors, including everyone from Samsung to HTC. Not that I want an Android Phone. I mean they’re really good phones: The Samsung Galaxy S4 is beautiful. It’s smart, fast, and powerful, with mind-blowing features like Smart Scroll, Smart Video and the Jedi-control-like Air View. The HTC One is equally impressive with, perhaps, more than a bit of a design nod to the iPhone.

But I still want an iPhone, partly because I prefer my phones small and also because I still choose iOS over Android (though the choice gets harder every year.)

So I know, more or less, what I want, but Apple has left me in something of a pickle. Apple CEO Tim Cook essentially told us we should expect no new hardware announcements until the fall. That likely means we shouldn’t expect a new iPhone until then.

Maybe.

And if that’s true, which iPhone? The 5s? An iPhone 6? A cheaper iPhone? A bigger iPhone? There are a lot of variables here. If I want my next iPhone to be the apex iPhone, what do I do? How long do I wait?

I think the best way to figure this out is to start with what we know, or at least what we think we know.

Next month, Apple will tip its product pipeline hand in its yearly World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Normally, a dev conference would be of little interest to consumers, but Apple watchers know that this is where savvy Apple fanatics can divine the next 12 months of product innovation.

While Apple has occasionally mixed it up with one-off, nearly day-long events for new iOS versions, Apple now tends to squeeze most OS update news into the WWDC keynote. Sometimes, Apple even unveils a hardware update or two, though considering what Cook said last month, that seems unlikely this year.

Our first glimpse of iOS 7, the follow-up to iOS 6, is almost a certainty. Depending on how much Apple shows and the amount of detail they go into, we could also learn quite a bit about — yes, you guessed it — the next iPhone[s]. Capabilities enabled in software typically have to be supported in hardware. The voice assistant Siri is a perfect example; it’s software supported by the power of the A6 mobile CPU. Similarly, the iPhone 5’s photography prowess is a combination of hardware and software.

We’ll also watch the WWDC keynote for any inadvertent slips from which we could draw fresh conclusions. Mobile phone screen shots, for example, where the aspect ratio doesn’t match the iPhone 5. Or maybe a commerce detail that indicates the existence of NFC, which the iPhone 5 lacks.

There is also the chance that, while Apple won’t ship an iPhone until late this year, it could show us something now. I know, that’s not the Apple way. Traditionally, Apple announces a product and it's on shelves within 30 days. On the other hand, this is a new Apple. Steve Jobs is a fading memory; Tim Cook has spent more time in recent months answering critics than delivering fresh products. It may be time to shake things up and generate, in essence, a summer of iPhone anticipation excitement.

I may be projecting here a bit, since knowing exactly what Apple will ship this fall would serve my purposes: I’d know whether or not to upgrade now or wait until September (or October).

Regardless of what happens next month at WWDC, it's pretty much guaranteed that I will not have a new iPhone model to choose from in the near future, which means I still have to make that choice.

There is nothing wrong with my iPhone 4, but using it makes me increasingly feel out of step with the now. I want to be in step.

If I go forward, though, and the iPhone 6, iPhone Slim, iPhone Big or iPhone Cheap is significantly better than the iPhone 5 ... well, I’m gonna be upset. Very upset. But I guess I'll have no one to blame but myself.

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