iPhone News Updated

AT&T Says IPhone to Help Push Smartphone Sales to Record

AT&T Inc., the second-largest U.S. wireless operator, said smartphone sales in the fourth quarter are likely to hit a record, driven by devices such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone.

The company said it sold 6 million smartphones in the first two months of the period, compared with the previous quarterly record of 6.1 million in the third quarter of 2010. Since December is traditionally one of the strongest months for sales, AT&T said it expects to push past the previous mark.

“We expected this to be one of our strong smartphone sales quarters ever,” John Stephens, the company’s chief financial officer, said today at a UBS AG conference in New York. “What we didn’t know was that we would nearly break our smartphone sales record in just the first two months of the quarter.”

AT&T, the first operator to offer the Apple phone in the U.S., sells the latest model, the iPhone 4S, and the older iPhone 3GS, which is free with a two-year service contract. It also offers devices that run on Google Inc.’s Android operating system from Samsung Electronics Co. and Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc.

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Apple’s iPhone 5, iOS 5, Sprint Possible Focus of Oct. 4 Event

Apple’s next iPhone, iOS 5 and a possible new iPhone carrier in Sprint could all be topics of the company’s Oct. 4 event.

We know one thing: Apple is hosting an iPhone-themed event Oct. 4 at its Cupertino, Calif., headquarters.

Beyond that, speculation abounds about Apple’s plans for moving its smartphone franchise into the future. For weeks, increasing chatter suggested Apple was gearing up to reveal the next iPhone, which the media has dubbed “iPhone 5.” According to a recent report by AllThingsD, whose sources accurately called that Oct. 4 event date, Apple CEO Tim Cook will take the stage to introduce the device.

At this point, various news outlets seem to agree that the next iPhone, whatever its name, will include Apple’s more powerful A5 processor, an 8-megapixel camera and perhaps an overall redesign.

The bigger question is whether Apple plans to unveil one iPhone or two. In September, former Vice President Al Gore, a member of Apple’s board of directors, reportedly told a conference about “new iPhones coming out next month.”

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