The new iPhone 5 screens will measure 4 inches from corner to corner, one source said. That would represent a roughly 30 percent increase in viewing area, assuming Apple maintains the current aspect ratios. Apple has used a 3.5-inch screen since introducing the iPhone in 2007. Apple have commented for a while they were considering a device smaller than the iPad yet larger than current iPhone models. Some sources are hinting that there may even end up being a larger iPod touch device, a larger iPhone than the current model, and the current iPad as well as a potential device between the iPhone and iPad though this seems less likely the more we learn about the iPhone 5′s final specifications.

The naming convention is also set to follow the recent change back to products simply being know by their name and not version number. Apple have done this for quite a while with their Macbook range and iMac, and re-introduced this with the new iPad 3 which is simply called iPad (with references to 4G removed in Australia). It is widely suspected that the iPhone 5 will thus be known simply as iPhone.

It is likely all three of the Apple’s screen suppliers, Korea’s LG Display Co Ltd, Sharp Corp and Japan Display Inc, will get production orders from Apple, which could begin as soon as June. That would allow the new iPhone to go into production as soon as August, if the company follows its own precedent in moving from orders for prototypes for key components to launch. Assuming no delays in manufacture this would likely allow Apple to plan for an healthy stockpile and marketing campaign centred around the end of year and Christmas gift buying period; always one of the heaviest consumer spending times of the year. Additionally Apple is likely taking into account the increased interest from Apple fans who know that this was likely the last device Steve Jobs had a large influence in before his passing. For Australia this could also line up for an end of year release though depending on stock levels Apple may not release to the Australian market until the first quarter of 2013.

Apple website’s message boards were once again full of complaints from frustrated users who saw no changes brought by the supposed fix for the battery problems. The reviews and complaints by iPhone users started appearing after the release of the iOS 5 and the new iPhone 4S.

A spokesperson for Cupertino, California’s Apple talked about the issue in a statement released on Thursday saying, “The recent iOS software update addressed many of the battery issues that some customers experienced on their iOS 5 devices. We continue to investigate a few remaining issues.”

A previous controversy in Apple’s products was the “Antennagate” issue where the iPhones would lose signal or get cut off in calls when the hand or fingers touches the iPhone in certain areas. Apple gave away freebies to please their customers and came up with a software to fix the issue. The iOS software is what runs on Apple’s products like the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

Apple acknowledged the problems to the iPhones battery life saying, “A small number of customers have reported lower than expected battery life on iOS5 device. We have found a few bugs that are affecting battery life and we will release a software update to address those in a few weeks.” Apple however still failed to talk about the causes of the problem.

One iPhone user has complained about the battery life getting worse after the update which contained the supposed fix was installed. Others claimed a 10% loss on battery life every hour.

Apple’s iOS devices are responsible for two-thirds of Apple’s sales. At the U.S. trading, Apple’s shares went down 0.2% ($384.62) and have been going down in the three trading days that passed.

A developer from an Australian app company, Mathew Peterson shared the iOS5.0.1 to other developers to help fix the problem. After testing if the issue is really fixed, the solution will then be made available to public.

Reports from people who updated their iPhone’s OS to iOS5 revealed a significant loss of battery life. Many iPhone 4S’and older iPhone models noticed a 19% drain in their phones battery within 50 minutes. A 10% loss was also noticed even when the phone wasn’t being used and even with many features turned off.

Even a staff member in an Apple store in Sydney didn’t have ideas so as how to fix the problem until such time solutions began appearing online. A lot of iPhone users have shared both their frustrations and solutions in online forums.

Some found a solution by turning off Location Services’ functions and notifications. Many have found that if the “Setting Time Zone” wasn’t disabled, the phone kept on checking the user’s location in servers even when deemed unnecessary.

Though turning off this iPhone feature settled the problem, lots of users still complained as to why they’d have to restrict their phone’s features for it to function as it was advertised.

Apple talked about the issue in a statement although failing to clarify what the bugs were, saying, “A small number of customers have reported lower than expected battery life on iOS5 device. We have found a few bugs that are affecting battery life and we will release a software update to address those in a few weeks.”

The battery life issue was just like the iPhone 4 “antennagate”, a condition where the phone’s reception got problems due to the electrical connection which was made every time the hand or fingers or hand touches the external antennas. Calls tend to drop out because of antennagate.

The iPhone’s bugs or problems might be due to not testing a product in environments outside that of laboratories. Apple’s has been very secretive of their upcoming products.

Updates of any solution of the iOS5 bugs will be shared over-the-air, straight to the consumers’ iPhone handsets.

NFC facilitates the transmission of data over a range of approximately 10cm. An NFC-enabled chip in a mobile phone can interact with a proximity card reader to make mobile payments.

Speaking at an Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) briefing this morning, the two founding members of user experience and research firm Mobile Experience discussed both the possibility of Apple partnering with PayPal for mobile payments and the possibility of the Cupertino giant going it alone.

Rod Farmer of Mobile Experience said that a potential partnership with PayPal for iPhone-enabled NFC payments has the possibility to be as, if not more, successful than Google’s Wallet product, which has been created in partnership with Citibank and MasterCard.

“[An Apple-PayPal partnership] offers the shortest path between two points for a consumer in terms of spending. You don’t have to worry about merchant banks [and] you don’t have to worry about the network … there are fewer mouths to feed, there are fewer existing relationships that need to be altered,” Farmer said.

He added that Google Wallet’s current partnership with MasterCard could present a problem in future, as Google may have aligned itself with a potential competitor that continues to “aggressively” grow its market share in the contactless card market.

However, Farmer’s colleague and co-founder of Mobile Experience, Oliver Weidlich, thought that Apple would likely go it alone if it equipped an iPhone with an NFC chip.

“I actually don’t think Apple needs PayPal. They’ve got 200 [million] credit card-enabled iTunes accounts. They can just bypass [PayPal],” Weidlich said.

There is still no guarantee that the iPhone 5 would even have an NFC chip built-in, but if the iPhone 5 was released sans-NFC, PayPal itself has previously said that the payment technology would be unlikely to reach critical mass for consumers.

“You need that first trigger for [retailers and merchants] to follow,” said Laura Chambers, PayPal’s director of mobile.

The inclusion of NFC in a device like the iPhone would make the technology mainstream, and lead to a wider take-up in the merchant and retailer space, Chambers added.

Rumours now place the iPhone 5 on track for a September release in the US.

News article sourced from ZDNet Australia