Giophone

The blogosphere has become used to taking DigiTimes coverage with a pinch of salt – primarily because many of the big leaks stem from unspecified sources, and this latest report doesn’t break the habit of a lifetime.

The iPhone is credited with changing the face of the modern-day smartphone, but after sticking with the same ethos throughout in terms of screen size and general power (i.e. good quality, but not eye-watering), it appears the fruit company is now playing catch-up with rivals.

A quad-core processor would be quite a bump from the current dual-core A5 chip offered with the iPhone 4S, and would also boast more power than the third gen iPad which, despite offering quad-core graphics, is still only a dual-core A5X processor.

DigiTimes being DigiTimes, I can’t say I believe this one, especially since my current iPhone 4S has been running for months, with numerous games and apps, yet without so much as a second of lag. I’m more inclined to believe Tim Cook’s company will opt for the A5X once again, which would still be fast, and allow for smooth gaming on the slightly larger screen

Of course, I could be wrong, and given Apple’s apparent push towards the larger screen, a quad-core processor wouldn’t be a massive shock. Still, although the company appears to have gone with the flow in increasing the display real-estate, a new chip exceeding the A5X would seem like too much of a leap, while also not being particularly necessary.

As with most Apple products, we’ll likely only know in the days leading up to the announcement what the next iPhone – dubbed the "iPhone 5" – will include. Although LTE would seem a foregone conclusion given the iPad implementation, the only other aspect we could presume without doubt to be a feature, is iOS 6, which was announced last month at WWDC 12.

Of course, I will be keeping you updated with anything I pick up in the meanwhile, though, so stay tuned!