The iPhone 12 can still make its planned fall debut on time, according to Apple's manufacturing partner Foxconn.
In an investor call (via Bloomberg), Alex Yang, a director for Foxconn in charge of investor relations, explained that the company still believes it can make its deadlines despite delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
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Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai Precision industries, has been responsible for making iPhone handsets since the original 2G model back in 2007. A typical timeline for a new iPhone involves trial production in June, followed by mass production of the final product from August. Because Apple's US-based engineers can't travel over to China to confirm the final design, these stages can't yet begin.
Since its Chinese workforce was among the first to be affected by the viral outbreak, it also lost a lot of time back in February. Now however, with the situation in China stable again, Foxconn expects to have the iPhone 12 models ready to go by fall, or at least before the end of the year.
Bloomberg quotes Yang as saying: “We and the customer’s engineers are trying to catch up the missing gap, after we lost some days due to travel ban. There’s opportunity and possibility that we might catch up.
“But if there’s a further delay in the next few weeks, months, then you probably have to reconsider launching time. It’s still possible.”
We've heard many rumors and leaks regarding whether the launch of the iPhone 12 will be on time or late, but this announcement carries a little extra weight since it comes from the manufacturer itself.
When it does arrive, we're expecting four models in the iPhone 12 series, including some that work with 5G. All three sizes (5.4 inches, 6.1 inches and 6.7 inches) will likely have OLED displays and Apple's new A14 Bionic CPU. The Pro versions of the iPhone 12 will also get 120Hz refresh rate on their displays, along with Apple's first time-of-flight camera on an iPhone, at least according to rumors.
We typically see the new iPhone release in September every year, but the iPhone X also experienced a delay, and went on sale in November 2017 instead. This is what we may see happen with the iPhone 12, assuming the potential delays don't get worse.
