Saturday, May 12, 2012

Rumor: Apple May Launch 4G LTE iPad Next Summer; 4G LTE iPhone By Fall

Nikkei Business reports that Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo will start offering the next generation iPhone and iPad.

According to Nikkei Business, the Japanese carrier has reached an agreement with Apple to launch an LTE iPad next summer and LTE iPhone next fall.

NTT DoCoMo is the predominant mobile phone operator in Japan and holds more than 50 percent of the cellular market.

BGR reports (via Nikkei Business):

Japanese news organization Nikkei Business on Wednesday stated that an iPad 3 with LTE is currently slated to launch on NTT DoCoMo some time during the summer next year, and an LTE-enabled iPhone 5 will launch later in the fall. Apple CEO Tim Cook is said to have met with NTT DoCoMo president Kiyoyuki Tsujimura and VP Takashi Yamada earlier this month to work out the details of the arrangement, and the companies have reportedly reached agreeable terms. 

Apple and NTT DoCoMo have been in discussions before, but according to rumors, the Japanese Carrier wasn't too happy about Apple's demand on unit volume and its refusal to allow carriers to install their apps on the iOS device.

Back in April, Will Strauss, President of wireless chip tracker Forward Concepts noted that Apple was looking for a solution where chips support 4G and 3G on a single chip so that the 4G LTE iPhone is as thin or thinner than iPhone 4 and it doesn’t consume too much battery life.

Qualcomm has recently introduced the next generation LTE chipset - Gobi 4000 that could be used in the 4G LTE iPhone and possibly 4G LTE iPad.

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