...And So It Begins -- Apple Special Media Event Sept 9

From Re/Code:

Onstage at our inaugural Code conference earlier this summer, Apple SVP Eddy Cue described the company’s fall product pipeline as the best he’d seen in his 25 years at Apple. A few weeks from now we’ll get our first look at what he was talking about. Apple has scheduled a big media event for Tuesday, Sept. 9 — a date to which Apple numerologists will strain to attribute significance. As with September events past, the focal point of this one is to be Apple’s next-generation iPhones, which are expected to feature larger displays of 4.7 and 5.5 inches and run speedy new A8 processors. Apple declined comment.9to5Mac previously reported that Apple was tentatively planning an event for mid-September.

My body is ready.

(Samsung, Xiaomi -- start your photocopiers!)

I was just gonna post this but I see you beat me to it. I'm glad it comes out in Sept., hopefully the price will be lower for new lines when my upgrade comes in Feb.

A September release isn't confirmed, though it would be unusual for Apple to announce it in September and not have it ready for pre-order within a week following the announcement.

I'm hoping to see the base storage go from 16gb to 32gb (with a 16gb variant reserved for developing markets). It would be fantastic to see a 32gb iPhone at $199USD on contract, but I think it may be more likely, if 32gb is the standard, to see the baseline be $249USD and up from there in $50USD increments. This prediction only applies to the rumored 4.7" iPhone. I'd imagine the rumored 5.5" iPhone would be $100USD more expensive baseline.

That's my best guess with what we know.

And SameSung announces their own press event as well. it's funny how they announce theirs when Apple announces the next product.

@FireEmblem_Man: lol... It is legitimately embarrassing.

Apple and Samsung chose early September for a particular reason:

Regarding Apple's A8, it will be manufactured on a 20 nm process and will likely utilize Imagination's PowerVR 6650 GPU with respectable clock speeds. I imagine it will remain a dual core SoC with updated Cyclone CPU cores. There is a chance that Apple has a brand new architecture for their CPU cores, but 3 'tick-tocks' in 3 years is considered rare (unless you're someone like Intel). Due to the 20 nm process, the cores should be able to reach higher clock speeds without raising the power consumption (compared to the A7). There is also the possibility of LPDDR4 RAM, which has already been confirmed for SoC's in Q1 2015 (Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810). Excluding Intel, Apple will have the first 20 nm SoC's on the market, with Qualcomm's 20 nm order only coming with their Snapdragon 810. The switch from LPDDR3 would improve power consumption and performance.

Mega kudos for pointing out the potential for a trio of tick-tocks in three years. Rare, indeed, but that's part of the advantage Apple enjoys. That advantage being deep control of their supply line through various means (mostly through smart investments of their enormous cash horde).

The A8 is set to impress, and with rumors of the next iPhone enjoying at least a 45% increase in battery size, it's looking more and more promising every day.

The best part about the impending event -- besides the event itself -- is the ramp up on rumors and news as the day approaches. Very exciting.

Mini timeline of Apple's Tick-Tocks:

• 2011 - Apple A5 (45 nm) - ARM's Cortex A9 cores using ARMv7 architecture.
• 2012 - Apple A6 (32 nm) - Apple's in-house Swift cores based on ARMv7 architecture
• 2012 - ARM: new ARMv8 64-bit architecture available.
• 2013 - Apple A7 (28 nm) - Apple's in-house Cyclone core based off of ARMv8 64-bit architecture
• 2014 - Apple A8 (20 nm) - ???

Apple's first tick-tock moved them to a custom ARM core, and the second tick-tock utilized an architecture change that came from ARM.

This time around, ARM has not updated their architecture, which is why the 3rd tick-tock would be quite rare.

@musicalmac: I think I read somewhere that it would be 32 gb minimum, I wouldn't doubt it since LG is pushing 32 gb in all of their phones. LG is gunning for Samsung so I'm guessing Samsung will be putting 32gb in the S6, so i expect Apple to try and stay ahead of the game maybe. They may just be confident knowing that they make quality products and go with 16 again, me personally I'd prefer the 64 bit architecture as now I have 32gb on my G2 but I never use more than 10 of which 4gb is just music, the rest is 4k video's and pics.

@slimdogmilionar: I think it makes sense that 32gb would be the new standard, especially since with the new additions to iOS8. It's unlikely that the OS footprint has gotten smaller with all the new software additions (most notably the health features).