Apple has confirmed that they will be making their iPhone 5 announcement in Cupertino, California at the place where it is most comfortable with – their very own headquarters.
As is the custom with the secretive Cupertino company, Apple’s not saying anything about the upcoming unveiling of its latest iProducts, but according to All Things D’s “sources close to the company,” the world’s first look at the newest iPhones will be at Apple’s Town Hall Auditorium, rather than the customary Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) or as part of Macworld or WWDC at San Francisco’s Moscone Center.
All Things D speculates that perhaps the new Apple CEO Tim Cook doesn’t care for the cavernous YBCA, instead opting for a more familiar, smaller and intimate venue closer to home.
Unlike the YBCA and Moscone Center, which can accommodate thousands of guests, the Apple Town Hall Auditorium is only fitted to house roughly a couple hundred. As such, space for the event and the number of journalists permitted to attend is expected to be extremely limited.
Despite its smaller size, however, the venue has hosted a number of landmark events for Apple over the past 5 years, serving as launch pad for the company's iPhone developer program and first unibody MacBook Pros in 2008, iPhone Software 3.0 in 2009, and the redesigned MacBook Airs and iPhone 4 "Antennagate" press conference in 2010.
It was also used in 2006 for the introduction of new Mac minis and the now defunct iPod Hi-Fi, as well as again in 2007 for new iMacs.
Beyond the location of the event, with the new leadership of CEO Cook, there are bound to be some changes in the Apple way of introducing products.
However an announcement does not automatically translate to a product release in stores, so there is still no confirmed information on when exactly is the iPhone 5 hitting retail stores, but next months is a good bet for many people.
According to earlier reports, Apple also did block out vacation dates for their employees in two blocks – from October 9 to 12 and from October 14 to 15, so there's a possibility that Apple could be releasing iPhone 5 during those dates.
