iPhone 5 will look a whole lot like the iPhone 4: report

With September nearly half over, here is what Silicon Valley knows (or thinks it knows) about the upcoming Apple iPhone 5: The device will ship this fall. The phone will come pre-equipped with the forthcoming iOS 5 mobile operating system. It will be carried by Verizon and AT&T, and potentially even Sprint, which, unlike its rivals, would offer the iPhone 5 with an unlimited data plan.

Things it definitely doesn't know about the iPhone 5: What the device will look like.

In recent months, rumors have swirled around a potential "teardrop" shaped iPhone – a tapered handset, fat at the top, and skinny at the bottom. But today comes word from Apple Insider – usually pretty accurate when it comes to Apple scuttlebutt – that the iPhone 5 will actually just look a lot like the iPhone 4: Rectangular, rounded edges, glass front and back, distinctly un-tapered.

Apple Insider sources its report to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who says "there will be little change to [the iPhone's] shape, and users will not see a discernable difference in its appearance." However, according to Kuo, the iPhone will get one major improvement: a new antenna, perhaps designed to eliminate lingering reception issues with the iPhone. (Horizons readers will remember that 'death-grip' mania nearly obscured the launch of the iPhone 4.)

Meanwhile, Apple Insider reports that Apple is gearing up for a potentially blockbuster product launch. "30 million fifth-generation iPhone units by the end of calendar 2011," writes staffer Neil Hughes. "If Apple were to meet that goal and sell all of the handsets in the holiday quarter, it would easily best the record 20.34 million iPhones Apple sold in its June 2011 quarter."

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