What you may not know is that the new iPhone is designed to challenge the likes of Samsungs Galaxy S3 and other high profile Android smartphones and as such will be sporting a new look for what will in effect be "iPhone - the next generation".
What do we know, and of course what can we safely guess at about the new iPhone?
Well unsurprisingly it is (unofficially of course) inspired by Android. No that doesn't mean that Apple suddenly like Android but it does mean that they have looked at the popularity of the best selling Android phones and designed the new iPhone to include some of their rivals most popular features.
Reliable news sources such as Reuters have confirmed that the iPhone will sport a larger four inch screen and the resolution of this screen is likely to be 640 x 1146 and sport a new row of apps if the developer version of iOS 6 is anything to go by.
When set to this resolution, to match the expected screen size of the new iPhone, iOS 6 automatically adds a new row of applications on screen and adapts to fit the increased display size whereas previous versions of the operating system simply space the apps out more.
This is the first sign that Apple have taken note of their rivals success, Steve Jobs always refused to make a larger size iPhone, he simply hated the idea of a larger screen size and while he was alive Apple were not allowed to change it.
And yet after his death sources inside Apple began saying he actually worked on the new iPhone and that he supported the idea of larger screen sizes. The skeptically minded among us may think that this is simply Apple using Jobs popularity to boost sales by saying "Steve Jobs helped design this", and that this will be said about other upcoming Apple products, but whether this is true or not the new iPhone will sport a larger screen. And it will be a widescreen (16:9 aspect ratio) one.
It will also sport a different dock connector. The traditional thirty pin connector has been dropped in favour of a smaller connector. And yes this will render it unusable with current iPhone accessories but no doubt Apple will already have an adapter cable available, for a price, that will help connect the different interfaces.
We don't know the cpu type but a new Apple battery has leaked, it is just ten milli amp hours higher rated than that of the iPhone 4S and is claimed to be the new iPhone 5 battery. It could of course be destined for the current 4S but if it really is (as claimed) that of the new iPhone then it suggests the phones cpu will be a dual core model and not the quad core monster that many people are expecting.
This would explain the small increase in battery life, the battery for the iPhone 4S had the same amount of increase over the iPhone 4, and would mean Apple have chosen to play it safe with a dual core processor rather than risk utilising a quad core which would traditionally necessitate a more powerful battery.
The cpu will clock in at between 1.2 and 1.5 gigahertz, probably dual core rather than quad core, and while some may argue this is not enough to compete with the higher end Android phones it's important to realise that a number of high end models still use dual core processors and that iOS is already optimised to work with a dual core processor, so in practice a dual core processor would actually make sense.
Despite recent claims to the contrary it is very likely the new iPhone will indeed feature Near Field Communication. Apple have moved the new iPhones camera and it would make sense to do so if they were planning to put an nfc chip there as the rumoured stronger metal back would prevent an nfc chip from transmitting signals properly whereas placing the chip where the camera previously went would be a better location.
So, will it or won't it have near field communication? With experts divided on the subject the likelihood, if only from a common sense point of view, is likely to be yes.
NFC is emerging rapidly as a popular technology, here in the UK and a growing number of other countries it is used for quick cashless payments in a number of shops enabling you to just swipe your phone over a reader in order to pay a bill. It is also increasingly being used in areas such as home automation (switching on appliances when you enter or exit your home for example) and in initiating file transfers between compatible devices.
As more and more Android phones take advantage of this it makes sense for Apple, who will be competing with them, to do the same otherwise they risk falling behind and that's something Apple won't want to do.
It makes commercial sense for Apple to include nfc in the new iPhone, that doesn't mean they will but if they decide not to it will put them at a disadvantage against rival phones such as the S3.
Feature wise iOS 6 on the new iPhone finally adds some things Android users have had for a while (and no I'm not referring to the notification centre iOS now has, something that Apple "borrowed" from Google).
With the new iPhone you can dismiss a phone call with a message or set a smart reminder, UK users can now finally use Siri to get UK based information, there is better facebook integration, turn by turn satellite navigation comes in and users of the new iPhone will now be able to download applications in the background and no longer need to type in their password when they want to download free applications.
With a larger screen size, nfc, a smaller dock connector and features such as the recent notification centre and upcoming iOS features such as dismissing calls with messages, better facebook integration and turn by turn satellite navigation the new iPhone will be more in line with its Android rivals but unless it has a few new tricks up its sleeve Apples latest offering may not have what it takes to threaten Androids increasing dominance in the smartphone arena.
Regardless of its features you can be sure the newest iPhone will sell very well as always helped along by the fact that the late Steve Jobs was "involved" in its design (something which no doubt will also be claimed for the iPad Mini should it see the light of day in October).
