Rumors

Several reports about Apple altering its requirements for Siri are causing people to wonder if the company is trying to block non-iPhone 4S devices from using the voice assistant. A new token is causing a problem for owners who are trying to connect using jailbreak tools like Spire.

Originally to get Siri to work on an non-iPhone 4S device you only needed a sever host and iPhone 4S certificate. However, according to several forums and Twitter, Apple has added a SetActivationToken which is causing issues with 3rd party servers. Thankfully their seems to be a temporary workaround.

Another report has surfaced pointing to a summer iPhone 5 announcement from Apple. The analysis from Daiwa Securities claims the next generation device will be revealed at the Apple Worldwide Developer's Conference (WWDC) in June. This would bring Apple back to its tradition of mid-year iPhone releases.

The shift back to a summer release would mark a departure from last year's October iPhone 4S launch, leaving just eight months between the two generations of smartphones. The normal venue for WWDC already has the dates June 11-15 blocked off for a "Corporate Meeting" and is expected to host the Apple event during this week.

A "reliable" source who tipped off 9to5mac that the iPhone 5 would not be released last year, said the new handset is now gearing up for production. The tipster said there are several prototypes floating around Foxconn in China so it's hard to tell which one will be the final product. All the sample devices feature a 4+ inch display, but none of them feature the rumored teardrop design.

Dreams of a teardrop shaped iPhone were dashed in November when an iLounge source said the iPhone 5 would not be receiving a redesign. Both sources seem to believe the next-generation iPhone will be available this summer.

According to investment bank Morgan Stanley the next generation iPhone will be slimmer and feature "a quad-mode chip" from Qualcomm that would give it both 3G and LTE capabilities. Analyst Katy Huberty (via Apple Insider) claims "new touch panel technology" will allow the iPhone to be thinner, and that Apple is considering new casing material. This coincides with a previous report from BGR who said the next iPhone will feature an all-aluminum back.

Huberty says little is known about the iPhone 5, but she believes it will be launched in Q3 of 2012 depending on "manufacturing yields" and "competition." "What is clear about iPhone 5 is that Apple and its supply chain are positively surprised by the demand for iPhone 4S, which increases confidence in strong sales for iPhone 5 later this year," she wrote in a note to investors.

Sources have told BGR the iPhone 5 will indeed be a complete redesign, with an appearance much like the form factor of the iPad 2. The front glass of the next generation iPhone will be connected to an all-aluminum back via a rubberized bezel. The mockup below illustrates what the aluminum iPhone might look like.

The bezel is said to be made of a similar material to the Apple Bumper cases. Not only would this bezel conceal a completely redesigned antenna system, it sounds like this would help make the iPhone 5 less slippery to hold. After all, the machined aluminum found on the iPad 2 is slick in more ways than one.