Gadgetory

what's happening Brian song here and welcome to the Alpha vibe for all the good and bad inside the world of Apple now anticipation and hype is at an all-time high and we're giving you the last view Apple buy some info before the big a is announcement now the Cupertino kids announced the official invitation-only event will be held at company headquarters on October 4th that's Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. and it's perfect timing since that's right after my Bikram yoga class that's right I'm flexible and the special event is titled let's talk I phone now everyone's been waiting because there's still a lot of mystery surrounding what Apple will actually release at this event according to nine-to-five Mac knew part numbers for a new iPhone updated iPhone 4s and iPod Touch ease have already appeared in Apple's inventory system the next-gen iPhone known as n 94 and Apple's iOS SDK kit has appeared in Apple's inventory system and according to them packs an a5 dual-core processor a Qualcomm Gobi baseband chip for GSM and CDMA compatibility with an 8 megapixel camera and 1 gig of ram now they also report to products with the n9 t a part number that have appeared and are believed to be black and white models for a modified 8 gig iPhone 4 that might be the new low-end budget iPhone the current iPhone 4 is part number is known as a 90 now three iPod Touch models with part numbers n 81 a have appeared and they're believed to be the rumored white iPod Touches since n 81 represents the current black iPod Touch and that could point to just a cosmetic change with the same 8 32 and 64 gig options alongside the current black ones so when should we expect the official launch so we can gather our lawn chairs and blankies and wait in long lines for over 10 hours without a bathroom break well according to a boy genus report AT&T employees have been blocked from taking any vacations during the first two weeks of October earlier this month it was reported sprint was doing the same at the time of the show the launch date is still up in the air and none of my retail contacts have been notified of any official blackout period now as we get closer what other features might we expect in the next iPhone according to Mac o Takara a China Unicom rep told onlookers during keynote at Macworld Asia 2011 that the iPhone 5 will have HSPA+ capabilities for faster high speed data now he also included this slide just to make sure people were paying attention China Unicom was the first carrier to have the iPhone 4 so you've got to be wondering what that guy was smoking to publicly announce that probably the same thing that AT&T in the US has been smoking since they've been marketing HSPA+ as 4G all this time now other revelations from 9 to 5 mac point to the biggest new feature in the next-gen iPhone called assistant it's the next evolution of voice control and based on their acquisition of the Sirius system now it's all voice controlled and it will allow you to make appointment that are instantly added to your calendar compose voice to text messages and create reminders for buying that rash ointment you forgot about still itchy now the assistant will also be able to ask you questions for more details just like a conversation and if this is true I won't need friends anymore now we'll find out about the real facts on October 4th but let's just tease you a little bit with what it might look like the team at Ben m80 decided to do what no one else would and build a prototype iPhone 5 based on the CAD designs case leaks and mock-ups of the rumored and let me remind you non-existent iPhone 5 now look at how dramatically he reveals it dude stop staring at me like that and I'm still impressed but awkwardly blown away by watching an Asian guy really fluent in German unfunny mais one-china Ben M Basquiat D now the prototype was a machine from a solid block of aluminum and treated with glass pearls it even features the teardrop design and honestly that looks real nice but I might as well have made a Loch Ness monster out of a sandwich and if you're wondering do people really care about this phone all this hype are people really going to make the switch well 41 percent of mobile consumers plan to purchase the iPhone 5 and that's according to a study by in Moby that covered users in the US Mexico and Canada in addition to that 52 percent of BlackBerry users plan to switch to iPhone 51 percent of current iPhone users plan to upgrade to the five for their next purchase and 20 percent of Android users would join this side of the computer food company now also 50% of all those people surveyed are planning to upgrade within the next six months and those numbers are scary but it's Apple that might be a little scared after Amazon rocked the tech world with their Kindle Fire announcement that's sure to change the tablet game the Kindle Fire is a seven inch LCD screen tablet that's based on the rim playbooks design it will run Amazon's own custom UI on top of Android there's no web camera microphone or 3G but you know what it doesn't matter because it's $1.99 Amazon is one of the few companies that has the content library with movies music books and magazines to support a content consumption device like the tablet and although it's not directly competing with the iPad it instantly elevated itself to the best Android tablet and what's the general consumer going to do this holiday season when they look at an iPad for $4.99 or a Kindle Fire for $1.99 it will be a very interesting holiday to see how it plays out but kudos to Kindle and only get more interesting when they release future hardware and a larger tablet all right that's going to do it for this week's show but we'll find out all the new goodies Apple is dropping on us on next week's show email us at the Apple bite at cnet.com with your reactions to Apple's announcements i'm brian tong we'll catch you guys next time for another bite of the Apple you