ohiotiger33;937021 wrote:Companies plan their device schedules years in advance. It would seem irresponsible that they didn't start planning on whatever is going to succeed the 4S about 18 months ago.
Right. They plan on what they would like to see happen. But in this business, things change from day to day so drastically that you can't plan for everything. Like I said, Jobs may have said what he wanted to see on the iPhone 5. But the device is so far out (in terms of market release) that it would be unlikely that an actual pre-production prototype is actually being used right now inside Apple headquarters.
And what happens during testing when they hit a snag or something needs worked out. Jobs isn't there to correct it this time around.
And no, I'm not saying that Steve Jobs single-handedly made all the decisions for the previous iPhones. But that is the picture they are painting in that article. And if that is actually the case, that iPhone 5 better be something that hits shelves January 1st.