Secondly, Dediu didn't "release a report." He composed on his blog, as is his wont, a reflective, informed speculation, triggered by the Sculley opinion, about what he frankly called "circumstantial evidence" that Apple may be moving to a semi-annual product release cycle; and the scale and impact of such a change. His full post, "Does S stand for Spring," is here.
The last bit of evidence he considered: "Rumors of 5S products in pre-production. This is the least valuable piece of evidence but it might indicate that the 'S' variant is targeting spring launch." That puts a different perspective on the "we've been predicting that Apple will speed up its product cycle for weeks" claim by IDT.
One of the issues Dediu doesn't touch on is what impact a twice-a-year iPhone introduction would have on Apple's pricing, not so much for the newest iPhone but for the one or more preceding models, and on the length of each model's life cycle.
iPhone 6 will be preceded by iPhone 5C
The 5C is being targeted at college-age women, who have a greater than average penchant for breaking their iPhones. To address this problem, the 5C will come in several pre-shattered touchscreen options, all of which make it nearly impossible to use. Yet it relieves iPhone owners of breakage angst.
Trust the parody site The Onion to track down the really interesting rumors.
iPhone 6 will have dual-LED, dual-color flash
Then, there's the almost-as-entertaining unintentional self-parodies.
iOSphere Rumor Rule 17 (RR17) says that if a rumor doesn't pan out, then wait, tweak, and recycle: eventually you're bound to be right.
"We received an anonymous tip," begins the post at GSMArena, by "Peter." He provides this week's most compelling iOS rumor assessment criteria: Its credibility is directly proportional to its oddness.
"The rumor came with no evidence (certainly no photos) but it's seemingly too odd to be made up," he writes.
The tipster, let's give him the codename OddJobs, says "that the next Apple smartphone (whether it's the iPhone 6 or 5S) will have a dual-LED flash...."
But there's more. It will be "unlike any other dual-LED flash we've seen before," Peter declares. "It's going to have LEDs of two different colors."
