June iPhone 5 release dies at altar of April white iPhone 4

The June iPhone 5 dies at the altar tomorrow as the white iPhone 4 is set to hit retail stores, prolonging the iPhone 4 era indefinitely and bringing an official and to any hope of the iPhone debuting at June's WWDC conference or a separate press event. This will mark the first summer in the iPhone's history in which no new iPhone generation has surfaced in the summer. There's still no clear indication of what has specifically led to Apple's change in behavior, although the first hint of scheduling flux may have been the February release of a Verizon compatible iPhone 4. Many at the time questioned why Apple would launch a Verizon iPhone 4 a mere few months before the arrival of the iPhone 5, and now the answer is more clear: the iPhone 5 was ultimately more than a few months away. Now the white iPhone 4 comes at a time when many thought the iPhone 5 was just around the corner

Signage

But any hope of a nearby iPhone 5 has to go away, for now, with the arrival of the white iPhone 4. Simple business sense dictates that Apple wouldn't be adding an iPhone 4 color now if it were expecting to launch the iPhone 5 in any less than three or four months. That doesn't mean the iPhone 5 has been pushed back to 2012 or even to the edge of the 2011 holiday season; it simply means that early summer is clearly off the table. That begs the question of what, if any, new hardware Apple will launch during its WWDC keynote. The upcoming iOS 5 operating system, which will likely be released alongside the iPhone 5, can be counted on to be previewed at WWDC. But with the iPhone 5 off the table (Apple won't preview new hardware that far in advance), the iPad 2 having been just released, and the iPod lineup not due for revamp until September, Apple may end up using WWDC to launch new Mac hardware – or nothing at all, as the WWDC is the keynote for a developer conference and not a mainstream press event, although it's been used as the latter in the past.

Dive in or wait

The most common question we've received all year has been "When is the iPhone 5 release date?" The answer: we still don't know. But as far as the corollary question, "Should I wait for the iPhone 5 or buy the iPhone 4 now?", the answer is this: the iPhone 5 can't be expected, at this point, any sooner than August or September. How much longer do you really want to wait? Here's more on the iPhone5.