Before today – July 3rd – the much anticipated iPhone 5 release date was rumored to be early fall 2012. But hold on to your horses because the pressure has been heating up in smart phone reality with the Samsung Galaxy SIII and HTC One X releases. Apple’s 6th generation iPhone is out to slow the bleeding that the Galaxy S3 is putting on them. The 6 generations – iPhone, 3g, 3gs, 4, 4s and now iPhone 5 – had quite a jump on the smartphone market but the gap is being closed by the just about everyone in the race now. And, given the pile of money that Apple has made in the past few years – Today’s stock hit $600 the highest intraday gains since April and the iPad release – its not surprising that everyone wants in the game.  Here’s some current smart phone stats.
In terms of the overall market, including feature phones, Samsung remains the top handset maker, with a 25.7 percent share of the market to LG’s 19.1 percent, Apple’s 15 percent, Motorola’s 12 percent and HTC’s 6.1 percent.
As for the device itself, Apple is expected to announce a device toting 4G LTE data speeds with iOS 6. Those seem to be the only specs that are all but confirmed. Also rumored are a 4-inch display, a thinner design, and a new front-facing camera to go with the new FaceTime over Cellular feature coming with iOS 6.
