iPhone 5S and Cheap iPhone Rumoured For an August 2013 Launch

Rumours of a cheaper iPhone gained traction at the beginning of this year as Apple seems to face constant pressure from all directions. The company appears to respond to market demand by finally materializing the highly-anticipated device in August this year, the most recent rumour claims.

iphone 3 back

The details come from a Chinese site EMSOne (via AppleInsider), and are reinforced by the Japanese site Macotakara, citing Barclays Capital analysts who claim the low-cost iPhone will be built in 2013 by both Foxconn and Pegatron.

Furthermore, the upcoming iPhone 5S, the next generation flagship Apple handset, will reportedly be a global smartphone, which make us think it will sport the recently introduced Qualcomm chipset operating on all 40 bands available worldwide.

In these terms, the iPhone 5S will also be compatible with China Mobile’s TD SCDMA network, which is currently incompatible with the iPhone 5.

The cheaper iPhone won’t be a world phone though, according to this rumour, as it will only support the frequency division duplex (FDD), while China Mobile uses time division duplex (TDD) for its 4G LTE network.

P.S. - Like our news? Support the site with a coffee/beer. Or shop with our Amazon link. We use affiliate links when possible--thank you for supporting independent media.