We have a date for the event, we even have reasonably solid date of October 14 for when the device will hit the market but unlike any previous year or any previous product the picture remains muddied.
After much deliberation and debate it seems that All Things D has come out on top when it comes to the iPhone 5 rumours, early on they said October (I said September) and more recently they said October 4 (I said nothing). The main source at All Things D, John Paczkowski even got specific with his information and pinpointed that Apple would use the intimate setting of its Cupertino campus to roll out the new iPhone, putting the move down to being unable to book its usual San Francisco venue rather than anything sentimental about the iPod's ten year anniversary.
But there is one notably missing element to this picture from our evidently reliable sources at All Things D and that is anything about the actual device itself.
It has of course been the longest rumour run up to any iPhone release ever before and unlike any other release this one seems so highly anticipated I get phone calls and messages from the most unlikely of friends about when the iPhone 5 will rear its bezel. The rumour mongering has even roped in the mainstream press, if we needed any proof that our beloved rumour sites held more purpose than most gave them credit for.
I could sit here tapping away about all the rumours we've come across over the last few months, but it would look similar to an article I penned in April which basically said: "we know nothing".
Even back in April the writing was on the wall, from Reuters I wrote: "the [iPhone 5] design will remain largely the same as the iPhone 4 and will feature a faster processor, presumably the A5 used in the iPad 2."
This small sentence remains accurate based on what we've seen over the last few months. Sure we've seen fancy mockups from Mac Rumors, we've seen case, after case, after case, after case come out with the same teardrop, enlarged screen, oblong home button shape. But they're all from a single source.
What we haven't seen from this purported iPhone 5 design is any case parts, any oblong home buttons, any enlarged screens or for that matter any clue on how Apple would deal with this larger display, and possibly the most notable of all, no real idea why Apple would release two iPhones simultaneously.
So what have we seen? We've seen a few camera parts, some variations of the iPhone 4 case and some dubious looking PCBs that would fit an iPhone but have Apple's A5 system-on-a-chip (SoC).
Looks to me that the writing is still on the wall.
Now I'm not one to spend hours analysing Apple's press invites but I do know for a fact that Apple's PR team like to douse rumours ahead of events to stem expectation. They did it ahead of WWDC this year and they're doing it now, that number one above the phone on yesterday's invite seems like a solid indication that we'll see a single iPhone.
This of course raises questions about Apple's low-end iPhone strategy, I say look at that iPhone 4 sat on your desk and smirk.