The new iPhone...
If you crack open the casing of the new iPhone, you will find significant upgrades from the iPhone 4. The new iPhone features Apple's dual-core A5 processor like the iPad 2 for even faster performance, better gaming, and drastically improved graphics.
Context & Ripple Effects
Ahead of Apple's expected October launch, a teardown of the new iPhone confirms what the supply chain had hinted at: the handset carries the same dual-core A5 processor as the iPad 2, a substantial internal jump over the iPhone 4 even though the casing looks familiar. The story travelled widely enough that Business Insider picked it up the same day, focusing its angle on the voice-controlled software Apple is reportedly planning alongside the hardware.
Two details frame the launch itself: Apple has moved its October iPhone event onto Apple Campus, breaking with the San Francisco venues that hosted every iPhone and iPad unveiling to date, and supply-chain makers claim a Wintek panel defect could keep Apple from meeting initial shipment targets — an unconfirmed claim, but one that makes display yield the key launch variable.
First-order effects
- Buyers get iPad 2-class performance in a phone: the dual-core A5 delivers faster apps, better gaming, and drastically improved graphics without changing the iPhone 4's exterior design.
- Apple's shift of the October event to Apple Campus signals a lower-key unveiling than the San Francisco product demonstrations that launched every previous iPhone and both iPads.
Second-order effects
- Developers gain a common A5 baseline across iPhone and iPad 2, so graphically ambitious titles built for one device port directly to the other, enlarging the addressable audience for either.
- Component suppliers move to the center of launch risk: if the rumored Wintek panel defect is real, initial shipment targets slip regardless of how ready the A5 hardware is.
Third-order effects
- If Apple keeps rolling its own silicon into the phone shortly after the tablet, rivals reliant on merchant chip vendors face a vertically integrated competitor whose performance upgrades arrive on Apple's schedule, not the broader component market's.
- Shared-chip convergence points toward an iOS ecosystem where phone and tablet are one software-and-silicon platform differentiated mainly by screen size — raising the bar for Android vendors still competing phone-by-phone.
The trend: Apple is converging its mobile line on in-house A-series silicon, using a shared chip across iPhone and iPad to widen its performance lead over Android rivals.