Apple to announce iPhone 5 on October 4 from main campus

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Handhelds, Rumors

According to tipsters speaking to AllThingsD's John Paczkowski, Apple's allegedly planning on making its big iPhone 5 announcement at an event on October 4. But contrary to previous announcement events, you won't be seeing Apple executives strutting around the stage at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. According to Paczkowski's sources, Apple's moved the big iPhone announcement to its main campus.

There's no indication as to why the event moved. The reasoning could be as innocuous as the fact that the Yerba Center might already have been booked with another event on October 4. Or, for that matter, Apple might not have exactly known when it was going to be able to produce its iPhone announcement and, thus, hosting the event on its own campus affords the company additional flexibility (and additional time to pick the date).

There's also Tim Cook: As this is his first big product announcement after taking the reins as Apple's new CEO, perhaps Apple wanted to deal with a more friendly and familiar location for his first go-around. That, or Apple wants to start getting the idea of campus-based announcements into people's minds, given that's the likely scenario once the company moves to its proposed "donut" campus by 2015.

That all said, when can consumers expect to get their hands on a shiny new iPhone 5? As you might expect, there's still no word regarding the actual street date of Apple's newest smartphone. A few sources have tossed around an October 15 launch date, and the only quasi-official word from Apple has been the insinuation from undisclosed internal sources that the iPhone 5 will be available a few weeks after its official unveiling – in a word, "October." That, and the company has allegedly blacked out vacation dates for its employees from October 9–12 and October 14–15.

If you're a T-Mobile customer, however, you'll have a bit more waiting to do before you can get your hands on Apple's to-be-released smartphone. According to T-Mobile's CMO Cole Brodman, the company isn't getting the iPhone at any point this year.

Since there's been no official announcement about the venue change, or even the event itself, we continue to ponder where Apple could hold its big announcement if not in Cupertino. Check out our slideshow below for all the possible venues Apple could be (or could have been) eyeing!

This article, written by David Murphy, originally appeared on PCMag.com and is republished on Gear Live with the permission of Ziff Davis, Inc.