4G LTE Equipment Installed at Apple Stores, Will iPhone 5 Be 4G Capable After All?
Making yesterdays 4G iPhone carrier test plist find much more interesting, Engadget was notified by an anonymous source that some major Apple Stores are getting in-store 4G LTE equipment installed by none other than iPhone carrier AT&T:
4G LTE equipment was recently installed in a major Apple store — by AT&T, according to our source. Making things somewhat more interesting is the equipment itself, one piece of which supports only the 700MHz and AWS bands — both of which AT&T plans to use for its LTE network if the T-Mobile acquisition goes through.
The reason for AT&T to install such equipment is unclear, but this obviously has set off a new wave of 4G LTE equipped iPhone 5 rumors and speculation. Engadget also comments that Apple Stores appear to be on a hiring spree:
We’re also told that the Apple Store in question, and all those in the region, are now trying to increase staffing on the sales floor by about 30 percent, which is apparently not related to the usual hiring in the lead up to the holidays (that will apparently still happen later).
4G LTE equipment from AT&T, additional sales floor staffing… nobody knows for sure what is going on here and you should probably consider the LTE talk a rumor at best, but the iPhone 5 is said to launch in October.
Update: The image of the alleged 4G equipment has been removed by request.
Engadget’s tipper requested the image be removed from all media sourcing from them. You should probably do that as well since your image even bearing a engadget logo, Matt!
We don’t have 4G in the UK yet, or most countries to be honest, so I wouldn’t bank on the next iPhone having it. The auction for the spectrum isn’t even going to be until about late 2012 let alone building the network up. Apple is more for the whole world and they don’t really change it for different markets, so if the chip is going to cost extra and not going to be used it seems a bit of a waste. The next phone I get will be 4G, it’ll be probably an iPhone but if something else good comes along then I’ll get that!
I suspect this is fairly standard practice at this point for AT&T. There’s no real point in install previous-gen equipment when they plan on rolling out LTE soon. They’re simply future proofing themselves for their equipment installs, in this case it just happens to be at an Apple store.
I wish, but not this time around. iPhone 6 will be LTE, and it will get everyone to upgrade again just eight months after a launch.
Don’t get my hopes up. Verizon LTE is extremely fast, I understand that AT&T’s is less impressive but still a huge boost from 3G speeds. Both would be a big deal, but I really don’t think we will see LTE iPhones until 2012, Apple is notoriously cautious with adoption of new technologies.