What you need to know about the upcoming iPhone 5

Some time this fall — in September or October — Apple will unveil the interminably rumored iPhone 5, and Apple Stores will be packed with people wanting the latest version the day it becomes available. This script plays out every year, yet the enthusiasm only seems to grow.

Very few details are known about the new device. Although there’s a rumor a day on what it will contain, the reality is that most talk is false — much of the gossip is simply made up — and only Apple knows for sure what to expect. But Apple has provided some hints, and its other products also point to what you can reasonably expect.

First, the new iPhone — I doubt it’ll be called the iPhone 5, given that Apple has dropped version numbers on the rest of its hardware product line — will run iOS 6, the modest update to the current iOS that focuses mainly on revised apps, Siri improvements, and greater iCloud enablement, such as through Apple’s new Maps app with its turn-by-turn navigation for more recent iPhone models and its Passbook app for storing tickets and other transaction records.

That’s all we actually know. Anything else is speculation or conjecture. Here’s what’s plausible:

• Larger screen. The 3.5-inch screen (measured diagonally) of the iPhone is too cramped, a fact that has become more obvious in the last year as Android devices sporting high-quality 4-, 4.65-, and even 5-inch screens have come to market. Few of those devices take advantage of the extra real estate — most blow up the existing screen layout — though the more recent versions of Android take good advantage of it for widgets. Let’s be honest: Blowing up the iPhone’s 3.5-inch screen to 4 or perhaps 4.25 inches would make it much easier to read the contents of all those iPhone apps we use.

  A 4-inch (or so) screen could be added in a way that does not make the iPhone that much larger, retaining compatibility with many of the millions of dock-equipped devices out there. Apple is not afraid to break compatibility when it sees a larger good resulting, but I don’t anticipate it going large for the sake of going large, as some Android manufacturers have done. Once a screen gets much past 4.65 inches in size, it’s hard to thumb-type on it, and you can’t keep it in a shirt pocket as easily. Apple could bring the iPad’s split keyboard to a large-screen iPhone to get around the thumb-typing issue, but I suspect that if any device takes on the 5-inch screen size in Apple’s portfolio, it would be the iPod Touch, to make it even more of an entertainment device.

• A smaller dock connector. A screen size change would be the perfect time to introduce a smaller version of the 30-pin dock connector, which leaves a big hole in your iPhone for lint and crud to fill, as well as constrains Apple’s flexibility in component placement. Apple likes small ports, and it has been diligent in shrinking them where possible. If you look at a Mac today, its biggest port is typically Ethernet, as Apple’s Thunderbolt and DisplayPort have eliminated the ungainly SCSI, CardBus, DVI, and VGA ports that used to create gaping craters in earlier-generation computers. (DVI was the last “fat port” on a Mac, and even Ethernet has disappeared from the latest MacBook Air models.) The dock connector is the iPhone’s only “fat port.”

  As for compatibility with millions of docks, stereos, and charging systems, no doubt we’ll see some sort of adapter that works in many cases (as Apple itself provides for the new MacBooks’ smaller power connector). I did note that Apple is willing to break compatibility when it sees a larger good resulting, right? To be safe, if you’re likely to get the new iPhone, I suggest you hold off on buying any hardware with a dock connector until you know for sure it’ll work. After all, maybe Apple will keep the current dock — it does hold the iPhone firmly in place on various docks, and that’s worth something.
• Faster performance. This is almost a guarantee: Like all hardware manufacturers, Apple boosts the speed of its hardware devices at each model — allowing services like iCloud, notifications, and Siri to run without disrupting your call, game play, or presentation. A faster A5X or perhaps a new A6 processor could debut.

• NFC support. I’m least confident on this prediction. Near-field communication was 2011’s tech du jour, finding its way onto some Android and some BlackBerry devices, as well as the Android 4.x, BlackBerry OS 7, and Windows Phone 7.5 OSes. At one level, it seems to becoming a standard technology for exchanging data between smartphones and with payment terminals. But at another level, it highly duplicates what can be done with Wi-Fi Direct and Bluetooth 4.0, radio technologies also widely deployed. Apple likes to keep things simple — especially when competitors overdo it on technology inclusion. That’s why Apple has long avoided the “stuff all the ports you can” game of the PC vendors and of the early tablet vendors.

  Plus, the more radios in a phone, the greater the power drain and the more confusion users encounter when trying to do simple things like pay for gas or exchange business cards. That’s not the Apple way. Apple would have to believe NFC is an essential radio technology, not just a nice third option, before it’s added.

As for all the other rumors — a major design overhaul, a switch from a 4:3-ratio screen to 16:9, and a replaceable camera lens — I just don’t believe them. They simply don’t fit Apple’s patterns and strategic approaches. But we’ll all find out this fall — and no sooner.