Why the next iPhone won’t be an iPhone 5

The new iPhone that is having an anticipated release of either this summer or early fall won’t be called the iPhone 5.  Here’s why:

The iPhone has had some rather peculiar names in its past when you really think about it.  The very first iPhone was simply called an iPhone.  This makes sense as it was the first of its kind.  But here is where the confusion comes in.  The next year, Apple released the new iPhone, which included the 3G network.  Rightfully so, they labeled this iPhone, the iPhone 3G.

From that point on, the iPhone naming scheme got a bit more complicated.  For some reason, the first iPhone can be referred to as both a 1G and 2G iPhone.  One referring to the network before 3G (and calling it 2G) and the other referring to the 1st Generation of iPhone (1G).

Then to make matters more confusing, for Apple’s next release (their third iPhone), they simply added an S to the name, to make it an iPhone 3GS.  At this point, the naming scheme started to make sense again.  Their 3rd iPhone actually had a 3 in the name (albeit so did the previous 2nd generation iPhone, the 3G).

Then Apple came out with the iPhone 4 in June of 2010.  Their 4th iPhone, released with the quite simple name iPhone 4.  It seemed like the naming/numbering scheme with iPhones would all fall back into place with this generation, and it would be simple to refer to iPhone’s by their generational number.  The 4th iPhone could be referred to as the 4G, and so on.

Everyone assumed that the 5th generation of iPhone would be called the iPhone 5.  But…  It wasn’t.  It was called the iPhone 4S.  So the 5th generation iPhone is called 4S.  Seems a bit confusing, but thats the way it is.

This next iPhone, however, won’t be called the iPhone 5.  It would be a mistake on Apple’s marketing to do such a failure of a name.  Why would you name the 6th iPhone, iPhone 5?!  Especially when they had the lead-up setup from the 2nd iPhone to skip a generation (since the iPhone 3G was actually the 2nd generation).

I predict that the new iPhone will be called something new.  There is potential that it will be called the iPhone 6, but given that there was no distinct “iPhone 5” released, I anticipate they will choose a new name, something likely without reliance on the numbering system.  A new name for the iPhone could come with something like iPhone X, although it is unlikely that Apple would choose that name given that Droid has already used it for their hardware.  iPhone Z?  Maybe they will go back to the basics, and call it something simple “The iPhone” or “The New iPhone”.  iPhone Air?   iPhone Mini?  iPhoneHD?  iPhone Chrome?

I guess well just have to wait and find out!