…That’s according to a Digitimes story which started life in today’s Commercial Times, a Chinese language trade paper, about Taiwan’s Quanta Computer landing a contract to manufacture five million iPhones. Quanta, which already manufactures video iPods and some laptop models for Apple, was quoted by Commercial Times as saying that it would be making a version of the iPhone, ‘with a different outer design to fit different markets.’
According to the full text of the story, as published on Quanta’s website:
Quanta and Apple are building a tighter than ever relationships. Quanta not only manufactures NB and iPod for Apple, but also may have receive the order to make the second generation of the Apple iPhone. iPhone is a smartphone based mobile, and the second generation model shipment is expected in September 2007 with forecast of 5 million units in 2008.
If true, this would seem to confirm that a new version of the iPhone will be in production from September this year. Quanta has responded by saying that the, ‘company will not comment on specific customer, order or any type of confidential information.’ But where did Commerical Times get its quote from? However, even if the story is accurate, it’s still unclear whether Quanta would be making an updated iPhone version for European and Asian release (as has been previously speculated), or a completely new model to sit alongside the one that’s about to launch.
Updated: Apple has now confirmed the US iPhone launch date as 29th June — to read more click here. To read all our iPhone coverage, click here.
Update Sept ‘07: so was this order for the new iPod touch, or is there still a 3G — and hopefully HSDPA — iPhone coming soon for European release?
Update 18th Sept: nope, the UK iPhone has been confirmed without 3G — click here to read the details of the 9th November launch, here for details of the tariffs on O2, and here for info about the free iPhone wi-fi access offer in the UK.
As always, the second i buy something from apple, they begin production on a better model. I hate Steve Jobs so much.
I think this is great that Apple prepares the public with version one and then wets appetites of users such as myself to come harder. I know much larger companies who wait forever to provide increments of improvement.
Jared: When you buy something - anything - chances are they’re working a on a better model. When you bought a PC… What were you expecting…? And it’s not like this trend hasn’t been in the mobile market for quite a while. Most recently I can think of the Razr, VX, 2, etc.
This is common in every industry, which is why it is smart to wait one or two versions before buying. They build one version and while they produce it, they realize what would make it better, so they make it better and produce that version, which tips them off to the next version…….while competitors come to the market with cool features, which tips them off on how to further improve the product…….
hahaha that is sooo true
i remember when i bought my pc it was THE BEST you could buy.
i spent like 5 000$ cuz it was THE TOP COMPUTER.
about 3 months later i saw on the shelves for half the price nd an even better computer right beside it…
i just wanted to cry lool
but what can u do xD
Heh… Memories of paying a very, very large amount of cash for a Mac Quadra 700 with twenty megs of RAM and and a two hundred megabyte hard disk (kidz, that’s a 0.2GB hard drive) come flooding back… Oh, and then spending yet more upgrading it to 768KB of video ram so that it could run 24bit colour at 800 x 600 resolution… You could buy a very, very serious PowerMac today for what we spent on that rig.
Well… this turned out to be the iPhone touch, didn’t it…?
hey this is how it goes and the question is, are you tursty enough? and if you are not, than you should wait, so this is why I am waiting for the second generation or the third one, so that way I might pick the carrier I want not AT$T…
If you are waiting for the iphone on another carrier, you will still have to unlock the phone which comes with the risk of it “bricking” (becoming a useless paperweight) AT&T and Apple have a five year deal so don;t hold your breathe for a verizon iphone anytime soon. Even if they did come out with a 3G verizon iPhone, the Verizon EVDO network peaks at 2.0 Mbps and is incapable of getting faster while the AT&T HSDPA is at 3.6 Mbps and has the ability to get faster throughout 2008.
Does anybody know when actually that second generation of iPhone is going to be on shelves in stores? I see that this post is from May of 2007, but it is February of 2008 and they are still selling version 1 and I guess quite happy with that.