New Year, New Speculation On iPhone 5S — Or Is It iPhone 6?

Because everyone is already bored with the smartphones they received as recently as last week, there is already a bunch of buzz about the next iteration of Apple’s iPhone, though there seems to be debate about the name.

Barron’s brings us all an analyst’s report from the folks at Topeka Capital that the new device — which he labels the iPhone 5S — will debut in the early summer (May/June) and won’t just be black or white.

Keeping in line with Apple’s candy-colored obsession that goes back to the original iMacs, the analyst says that he believes the new iPhone will come in a range of colors — “pink, yellow, blue, white & silver, black & slate.” He writes there could be up to eight color options available to customers.

The analyst expects this rainbow to ultimately extend to the iPad tablets.

Customers won’t just have options for the colored shell of the new iPhone. Topeka says it has reason to believe the next device will come in multiple screen sizes, which “eventually opens up the possibility for a lower-priced iPhone (i.e., iPhone mini) with a smaller screen size that could allow Apple to further penetrate markets such as China and open up opportunities in India.” Topeka isn’t ruling out a larger screen option.

Then there is this report from The Next Web which claims that “traces of Apple’s new iPhone and iOS software have begun surfacing in app usage logs,” which appears to be evidence that the company may already be testing new hardware and software for the next iPhone iteration.

“One developer showed us that Apple has been testing hardware relating to a new ‘iPhone6,1′ identifier, powered by a device running iOS 7, which is expected to be released by Apple in the middle part of this year,” writes Next Web. “Apple’s current flagship, the iPhone 5, bears the identifiers ‘iPhone5,1′ and ‘iPhone 5,2′ depending on the LTE model of the handset and the 4G bands on which it operates.”

The report claims that logs show these requests originate from an IP address located on Apple HQ’s campus in California.

“Although OS and device data can be faked, the unique IP footprint leading back to Apple’s Cupertino campus leads us to believe this is not one of those attempts,” explains Next Web.

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