iSpeculation begins: Nurse, the screens!

Last Apple announcement time, what we thought would be the iPhone 5 (but turned out to be the 4S) didn't have a larger screen, when all around it the screen sizes were growing. Now there's been even more big-screen action by Apple's rivals: Samsung in particular has had a surprise hit with the Galaxy Note with its whopping 5.3 inch screen and stylus.  More recently the main iPhone opposition, the Galaxy S3, arrived sporting a 4.8-inch screen.  HTC's Androids been growing for some time. The HTC Titan (clue is in the name) for instance weighs in at an impressive 4.7 inches.

All in all, the iPhone's tiny little 3.5 inch screen is starting to look particularly diminutive. Could it be that a reasonably-sized screen will be on offer this year, probably packaged up as the iPhone 5?

All the rumours suggest 'yes' (as most did last time).

Reuters is reporting  South Korean and Japanese sources claiming large orders for 4 inch screens have already been placed there by Apple.  We've heard that sort of thing before, but maybe this time the iPhone will actually grow up.

Meanwhile Apple has retreated on its attempt to globally market its latest iPad as '4G'.  As we have stoutly maintained on TelecomTV for about 2 years now, the marketeers' success at suborning and devaluing the 4G moniker to make it synonymous with LTE (which is isn't) quickly lead to tit-for-tat hype and customer confusion. Eventually everything that went just that little bit faster than standard HSPA was granted 4G status, in the US at least.

In the rest of the world users just remained confused. Especially when Apple advertised the new iPad  as having 4G capability. In the UK no LTE yet exists and spectrum hasn't even been assigned yet. Even when it is assigned it will be in the 800MHz and 2.6 GHz bands, not in the 700MHz band as in the US.

After intervention from the UK's Advertising Standards Authority, Apple has agreed not to sow confusion and is now labeling its so-called 4G iPad 'WiFi + Cellular'.