Will the new iPhone be called iPhone 5 or iPhone 6?

[Brandon Hann]

A lot of my friends keep speculating about the "iPhone 5" and asking when it'll be out and what it'll look like, etc. And every time, I correct them saying that it'll actually be called iPhone 6. Undoubtedly, each time they ask me why it would be called iPhone 6 given that the current model is called iPhone 4S. I was pretty sure about my answer until yesterday when a friend of mine wanted to bet me $100 that it would be called iPhone 5.

So I started looking for clearer answers and I found that for just as many people that agree with me, there are those that agree with my friend. The logic is as follows:

iPhone 5
Calling the next phone iPhone 5 would be in keeping with Apple's new naming scheme (sequential numbers). Considering the iPhone 4S was not a brand new phone, but a slightly upgraded iPhone 4, then the next phone would be the iPhone 5.

iPhone 6
To me, this is the most logical of the two options because when iPhone first came out, there wasn't a naming scheme involved. It was simply known as iPhone. When the second phone came out, it was not called iPhone 2. It was called iPhone 3G. However, the reason for this wasn't to segue into a new numbering scheme...it was done simply because the phone was taking advantage of the brand new 3G network at that time. The next model to come out was the 3GS, which made a bit more sense because it was in fact the third phone. After that came the iPhone 4, which everyone thought was called "4" because it was 4G (but they were incorrect). They had every right to believe that because that's what happened with the 3G. In reality, Apple appeared to adopt the numbering system that is now in use on iPad. Therefore, iPhone 4 was the first iPhone to be named using a 1, 2, 3 system. In keeping with their past history of releasing intermediary product upgrades, Apple released the iPhone 4S just as they had with the 3GS. The problem now is that if Apple will be truly (and correctly) numbering subsequent iPhones, the 4S is really the 5th generation iPhone meaning that the next phone will be the 6th.

Another possible name
After looking a little bit more into the matter, I found that there's a third camp of people that believe the iPhone will deviate completely from a simply numbering system and go with a technology approach. If this is true, the next iPhone could be called iPhone LTE since it's rumored to be an LTE device.

No matter what the name is, two things are for sure. The next phone will be the 6th iPhone and people will still line up for days to get it. Let's get back to arguing over what it will look like and what features will be under the hood! I wrote about this today. Check out some iPhone 6 concepts!!