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Apple may push 5G iPhone launch due to COVID-19

The shares of Apple dropped late Wednesday as a report as the report surfaced.

Apple may push 5G iPhone launch due to COVID-19

A man walks past the shuttered Apple store on Michigan Avenue on March 19, 2020 in Chicago, Illinois. Michigan Avenue, normally a vibrant street packed with offices, hotels, restaurants, museums and tourist shops, is now nearly deserted as many of those businesses have been closed while the city practices social distancing in an attempt to curtail the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19). (Image: Scott Olson/Getty Images/AFP)

The current global climate has forced Apple Inc.to to consider delay of the next-gen 5G iPhone, widely referred to as the iPhone 12. According to Nikkei Asian Review, it was apparently meant to ship in September.

The shares of Apple dropped late Wednesday as a report as the report surfaced. Apple closed at $245.52, down .55 per cent after it was positive for most of the day during a stock market rally. It hit a high of $257.89 during intraday trading, reports CNBC.

The company typically launches new iPhones around September 10, but this year with the global pandemic in place, Apple is considering delaying the launch.

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Additionally, developing a concrete “iPhone 12” prototype was originally slated for early March but was delayed due to travel restrictions between the US and China. Apple said in February that its revenue for the current quarter would be below its forecasts and that the worldwide iPhone supply “will be temporarily constrained” because of the consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic.

J.P. Morgan analyst Gokul Hariharan also said that engineering and production verification tests are likely to happen later than usual this year.

Current rumours anticipate a four-device lineup for the iPhone 12 series. It is believed Apple is preparing a new 5.4-inch iPhone, two 6.1-inch models and a new 6.7-inch model. All of the new iPhones would feature OLED displays and would support 5G cellular networking. The two high-end models would feature a triple camera system and a lidar sensor, similar to what was introduced in the just-released iPad Pro.

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