The iPhone 5 rumor rollup for the week of June 24

Radical, a summer bloom, dual flash, quality cheapness

With the celebration of the summer solstice having passed, the iOSsphere is heating up with new and newly recycled iPhone 5 rumors.

The warm weather seems to have buoyed hopes that iPhone 5 will, after all, be a Radical Redesign of the product; and that it might be in our hands in August instead of September; and that it will have dual LED flash technology.

Here is the iPhone 5 rumor rollup for the week ending June 24.

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With the celebration of the summer solstice having passed, the iOSsphere is heating up with new and newly recycled iPhone 5 rumors.

The warm weather seems to have buoyed hopes that iPhone 5 will, after all, be a Radical Redesign of the product; and that it might be in our hands in August instead of September; and that it will have dual LED flash technology.

Here is the iPhone 5 rumor rollup for the week ending June 24.

"I have to say all the speculation over when Apple will release the iPhone 5 is getting quite confusing and to be honest fairly tiresome, as the speculated date for the launch of Apple's next generation iOS smartphone seems to change from day to day." -- Mark Chubb, editor, Phonesreview.co.uk

DON'T FALL BEHIND: iPhone 5 rumor rollups for weeks ending June 17, June 10 and June 3

iPhone 5 will be radically different from iPhone 4.

The BoyGeniusReport announced this week it has "independently confirmed" that iPhone 5 will be, like, totally different from iPhone 4.

Kaboom. What a great advance in the iPhone 5 Rumor Sweepstakes.

You're salivating for details. And here they are, every one of them that BGR was able to independently confirm: "We have been told by a reliable source to expect a radical new case design for the upcoming iPhone, though we have not been given any additional details surrounding the design of the new iPhone case."

Oh.

To make up for that disappointment, BGR linked back to Joshua Topolsky's April 22 post to ThisIsMyNext.com, complete with an artist's rendering, wherein he described an new iPhone that will look more like an iPod Touch, and have, in profile, a teardrop shape, moving from thick to thin.

That's the neat thing about rumors: When they get old enough, they don't go bad; they become new all over again!

iPhone 5 will be just like iPhone 4.

Plenty of people with access to a keyboard and the Internet think BGR's independent confirmation is independent "bunk."

"The iPhone 4 design has been an undisputed success," says Jeff Bertolucci at our sister site PC World. "Why radically change something that people really, really like? Common sense tells me the 'radical' redesign rumor is bunk."

But ... There's always a "but" when it comes to iPhone rumors.

"Then again, this is Apple we're talking about -- always on the bleeding edge of industry design -- so you never know," Bertolucci writes.

Another debunker is Desire Apthow, at ITPortal, who thinks a radical redesign is "not very likely we reckon, based on the fact that the iPhone 4 was itself very different from the previous iPhone 3GS, which itself was very similar to the iPhone 3G and first generation iPhone."

So, past history being an infallible guide when it comes to consumer product design, that apparently means we'd have to wait until iPhone 6 (heaven help us) for a "very different" iPhone.

At MacNewsWorld, the Radical Redesign Rumor renewed a fever of anticipation in Chris Maxcer, who publicly admits his initial, disturbing lack of faith: "I had pretty much written off the idea that Apple would release a new form-factor for its upcoming iPhone. ... But the latest rumors ... have me entertaining a tantalizing thought: With a new release slated for as early as August or September, might Apple wow us all heading into a new fall selling season?"