The world is eyeing the next generation of Apple’s iPhone expectantly, but the question that arises is will the ‘iPhone 5’ be launched with the most powerful features till date? The Apple iPhone, often labelled as the smartphone that is “meant for class, not for the mass(es)” is under serious pressure to innovate. An iPhone user wants her smartphone to stand out at least as competitive to, if not better than any other smartphone available in the market.

To add to the pressure on Apple, Samsung has clearly emerged as the worldwide leader in smartphone shipments, with its wide range of models at multiple price points.

In the price band of the Apple iPhone, Samsung offers the Galaxy S series smartphones, with the Galaxy S III, the latest offering in the line-up having on board all the latest features. So can we expect that this time Apple will come out with an iPhone that can bridge the widening gap or will users have to wait for another year till the launch of the iPhone 5S. 

To remain competitive in the smartphones market, Apple needs to launch phones at par with its competitors. The iPhone still lags behind on certain key features that are commonly found in other smartphones within the same price band. The next generation iPhone5 has to especially compete with the Samsung Galaxy S III and the HTC One X. These smartphones lead the Apple iPhone in-terms of bigger display screen, better memory (1GB RAM), faster processor (Quad-core Processor), sleek body, NFC and 4G-LTE compatibility.

Now, as an analyst, here is my assessment of the specifications I feel that the new Apple ‘iPhone 5’ would realistically have:

 Source: CyberMedia Research, 2012

While the new ‘iPhone 5’ is widely expected to be available to customers starting September / October 2012, let’s wait for the formal announcement from Apple expected on August 7.