Update: Jim at the Loop isn’t feeling this one.
Jefferies & Co.’s Peter Misek, the analyst who has predicted an Apple HDTV for quite sometime, today provided his roadmap for upcoming Apple product launches (pictured above via BusinessInsider). Misek is expecting an “iTV” related event next month in March, the low-cost iPhone and iPhone 5S in June or July, and the iPad 5, second-generation iPad mini, and iTV in September or October.
He also believes that a 4.8-inch iPhone 6 is coming next year in June 2014—after running into manufacturing issues with in-cell display technology in the larger form factor and the move to a 20 nm processor:
The plan was to release the bigger iPhone at the end of the year (October time frame) to prevent market share loss, but Misek reports Apple’s screen suppliers are struggling to increase the size of the 4-inch iPhone to 4.8-inches…He thinks the next iPhone will run on a 20 nm processor, allowing it to add more cores, possibly four or eight. To take advantage of the new processing speed, iOS will have to be upgraded. The new iOS architecture might not be ready until 2014.
Misek first said in November 2012 that Sharp was preparing its production lines for the “iTV”, and then he again claimed in March that production of up to 5 million units could begin by May with a product launch by Q4 2012. In today’s note, Misek said next month’s iTV-related event could introduce an SDK for Apple’s new TV platform but not the TV set itself (via MacRumors):
Channel checks indicate Apple has a product event in March that is Apple-TV related (possibly an iTV SDK introduction). We think a Sep/Oct iTV launch is being targeted.
