iPhone 5 unveiling set for Sept. 12

Waiting for the iPhone 5? A new invitation from Apple suggests the long-awaited smartphone is only a few days away. 

And we're off. 

After months of breathless speculation and rumormongering – the usual run-up to an Apple product launch, in other words – the release of the next iPhone finally draws nigh. According to an invitation obtained by the tech site The Loop, Apple reps will take the wraps off its much-ballyhooed smartphone on Sept. 12, at 10 a.m., at the Yerba Buena Center, in downtown San Francisco. 

"It's almost here," reads the invite, which is emblazoned with the number 12, for Sept. 12 – and under that, the shadow of the number 5. So yes, the new iPhone will almost certainly be called the iPhone 5. But what will the iPhone 5 look like? Well, the answer to that question is a little murkier. Most reports on the device have centered around a larger screen size: 4 inches, corner to corner, instead of 3.5 inches. 

This makes a whole lot of sense. Although Steve Jobs once called 3.5 inches the perfect display size for most consumers, the fact is that smartphones have been getting progressively larger in recent years. The HTC One X, for instance, packs a 4.7-inch screen – more than an inch larger than the current iPhone – and the Samsung Galaxy Note, a heavyweight in the smartphone class, offers 5.3-inches of display real estate. 

Apple may feel that it needs to keep up. 

Meanwhile, users should expect a new, smaller dock connector and a two-tone, (still) square-ish body. 

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