Stop Calling It iPhone 5
/Even posts that end with:
The world has apparently decided to dub it the iPhone 5 ahead of time, but honestly we'd be surprised and a little disappointed if Apple goes that way – after all, it'll be the sixth iPhone, not the fifth.
...call the thing iPhone 5 in the title. And it's not just The Verge, it's most of the tech press. They should know better, since it doesn't take much of a big expert to see why it will certainly not be called iPhone 5. Let's quickly look at all 5 existing iPhone names in order of when they were released.
First Generation: iPhone
The first one, the one that kicked off a revolution in smartphones. No need for a suffix here.
Second Generation: iPhone 3G
Certainly not the third one - The 3G noted that it used 3G radios for faster data rates.
Third Generation: iPhone 3GS
The actual third one. An S was appended to 3G since it looked identical to its predecessor but was updated with faster internals. S was for Speed.
Fourth Generation: iPhone 4
Still a 3G phone but everything else was completely redesigned. Instead of calling it iPhone 3GSBFAHWCREE (3GS But Faster And Hey We Completely Redesigned Everything Else!), they opted to name it after the actual generation it was, the fourth.
Fifth Generation: iPhone 4S
This was the one that was widely speculated to be called iPhone 5, and got so much hype that the mainstream media freaked out when it was just a speedier iPhone 4 with a fancy camera. It's still the fifth generation iPhone though, just taking after the 3G to 3GS naming convention.
Sixth Generation: iPhone 5 - Huh? Of course not.
Wait, what? No, you big dummy. They can really only go three ways here: 'iPhone 6' since it's the 6th generation one, 'the new iPhone' just like they did with the third generation iPad, or iPhone LTE since it will be the first iPhone to come equipped with LTE radios. I think 'iPhone 6' is extremely unlikely and that the last two names are equally probable. The naming of the third generation iPad may signal a shift to a suffix-less naming convention for iPhone, much like they've done with the many generations of iPod Touch and Apple TV.
One could make an argument for iPhone LTE over the new iPhone because they'll still likely sell the iPhone 4S for $100, and that could confuse people. I would agree, if it weren't for that pesky iPad 2 sitting along side the new iPad on Apple's shelves. Personally, I think it would be confusing to the average consumer, but who knows.
My money is on iPhone LTE, since i think wireless consumers have been trained to get all excited about LTE data by the carriers and it is a feature that many Android handsets have been rocking for quite a while now. I think it would be in Apple's best interest to show off the LTE capabilities front and center for in-store competition with Android and Windows Phone.
So, please, PLEASE knock it off and don't call it iPhone 5 any more. You're better than that.
