Definitive information about Apple’s next iPhone emerges

It’s certainly not the normal way tech news gets announced, but the final “unofficial/official” conformation of Apple’s upcoming lower-cost iPhone has been confirmed in a Supplier Responsibility Investigation letter. The report comes from China’s Labor Watch through an undercover investigation into Pegatron, an Apple supplier for many parts of their hardware. The report includes documentation around the development and release of the new iPhone model, which is intended for releasing at a cheaper price point to capture the lower-end Smartphone market.

The report reads:

Today’s work is to paste protective film on the iPhone’s plastic black cover to prevent it from being scratched on assembly lines. This iPhone model with a plastic cover will soon be released on the market by Apple. […] The new cell phone has not yet been put into pass production, so quantity is not as important.

This confirms the long speculated (and cheaper) plastic casing rather than the current flagship model’s metal one. It also lends some credibility to rumors that the cheaper model will come in a variety of colors and may actually be titled the “iPhone 5c”.

It’s worth mentioning that the reason behind the report was not to promote or market the new phone, but to look into labor violations from Pegatron, which despite a brighter spotlight in the last year appear to still be subpar. Apple has a giant target on its back given their relative place in the market, and the news is sure to fuel more outrage over the company’s overseas labor practices. In this instance though it appears Pegatron was falsifying labor reports and work timecards in order to deceive Apple during inspections.

Given the timing of the report it all but locks in a fall release (likely October) for the new model iPhone which is expected to be a foil against several lower-priced Android models currently flooding the market. The real question will be what the key differences will be between the lower-end model and the premium version. Lack of retina display has been widely assumed, but given the scale benefits to producing everything with the same resolution it’s not a certainty.

The lower-end model, like the smaller iPad, was something Steve Jobs claimed he was uninterested in, but market conditions have all but forced Apple’s hand here. With this device finally a certainty, the question now shifts to how quickly Apple will also release a higher-end model.