All Things Digital

Apple CEO Tim Cook at the January 11 Verizon iPhone presser

We received an interesting tip in July that AT&T would be changing its iPhone tiers on October 4th. At the time, we said,

AT&T raises iPhone device tier on October 4th, perhaps signaling launch date?

Fast forward to today. AllThingsD reports that Apple CEO Tim Cook will unveil a fifth-generation iPhone at a media event scheduled for Tuesday, October 4:

Tuesday, October 4. That’s the day Apple is currently expected to hold its next big media event, according to sources close to the situation, where the tech giant will unveil the next iteration of its popular iPhone.

Author John Paczkowski mentions Apple could change plans at any time. The time frame jibes with the publication’s previous report calling for a mid-October launch of the next iPhone. Kara Swisher, another author with AllThingsD, wrote on Twitter last month that there will be no iPhone event “until Oc … to … ber”.

This will obviously be a huge event for Tim Cook, his first in the CEO role. AllThingsD notes that pressure is on Tim Cook to perform well.

Cook is certain to preside over the iPhone 5 rollout. He has to, of course. To pass the presentation on to anyone else — even one of Apple’s key executives such as Phil Schiller, who has handled the Macworld and Worldwide Developers Conference keynotes in 2009 — would undercut Cook’s new role and reinforce public perception that its legendary outgoing CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs is Apple and that it will be a different company without him.

According to Barnes and Noble’s website, the official Steve Jobs biography – titled Steve Jobs: A Biography – is becoming available on November 21, 2011. This is a big leap from the previously announced March 6, 2012 release date for the first Steve Jobs-approved biography.  In addition, the book seller’s website has seemingly revealed the cover for the biography (shown above), and it is unsurprisingly simple. (via AllThingsD).

The book is also 448 pages long and is based on over 40 interviews with Steve Jobs in addition to interviews with his family and friends. Interestingly, although approved by Jobs, the Apple CEO had no control over the biography’s contents. The Apple CEO had this to say about the biography:

I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, such as getting my girlfriend pregnant when I was 23 and the way I handled that, he said. But I don’t have any skeletons in my closet that can’t be allowed out.

Here is the full description of the biography (available for pre-order for $20):

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Kara Swisher, exactly one year to the day ago:

According to several sources, and as has been widely expected, Apple will once again be holding its annual autumn special event, closer to mid-September this time. Apple (AAPL), which has had a fall hello-there confab every year since 2005, waited until August 31 last year to announce its “Let’s Rock” event on September 9 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco.

The event turned out to be on September 1st. – 9 days earlier, rather than later, than the previous year’s September 9th launch.

Miss.

Bloomberg, a fairly reliable publication, also missed that one, but only by a week.

With that in mind, AllThingsD‘s Kara Swisher lashed out at bloggers belligerently this evening (right) saying the iPhone 5 event would be held in “Oc … to … ber”, not September as had been forecasted and then shot down earlier today.

She didn’t take kindly to attempts at clarification. She cited a previous AllThingsD report which said the iPhone 5 would launch in October.

For the record, we do believe that the iPhone 5 will launch in October.

At this point, it is a good to keep in mind that Apple’s release schedules are fairly fluid and any forecasting is dangerous because of unforeseen setbacks that can delay launches.

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iPhone 5 knockoff

John Packowski writes for The Wall Street Journal’s blog AllThingsD that, alas, iPhone 5 will be launching in October, not in September as the rumor mill has been buzzing over the past few weeks. This information apparently comes from an unnamed source close to Apple. The blog has been right about many things Apple in the past so it’s worth mentioning here:

So those rumors claiming the iPhone 5 will debut in late September? They’re wrong. Instead, it’s going to be an October surprise — the month in which Apple will be launching its next generation iPhone.

We received solid information last month that AT&T was making big changes to its insurance policy related to iPhones in the first week of October.  Additionally, we broke the news that AT&T was introducing a new throttling policy as of October 1st as well.  The writing appears to be on the wall.  But AllThingsD think it will be a late October surprise:

So when can we expect the company to uncrate the iPhone 5? “October,” the source said, while declining to offer a hard-launch date. Other sources said it will be later in the month, rather than earlier.

Others have reported that AT&T has blacked out employee vacations in the September’s last two weeks, which is usually a sign of a major product launch which may or may not be related to a new phone from Apple. This unconfirmed piece of the puzzle was apparently provided to Gizmodo by an AT&T employee this past Friday who noted that “historically the only time they’ve done this was for an iPhone release”, adding that “we’re looking at the last two weeks of September”.  BGR said that it was the first two weeks of September.  Not so says AllThingsD:

“I don’t know why AT&T’s calling for all hands on deck those weeks, but it’s not for an iPhone launch,” a source familiar with Apple’s plans said.

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