The iPhone 5 Will Be Announced Today

Apple sent out invitations to a media event for Sept. 12 at 10AM in San Francisco. Take three guesses as to what it's announcing. Take five, even.

We presumably "know" a lot about the next iPhone, like the fact that it'll have a redesigned, mostly metallic body and a taller screen, thanks to a steady stream of leaked parts over the last few months. That said, one of the things that was considered a sure bet — that the next iPhone would be called "the new iPhone," as Apple had branded the most recent iPad — may not be the case, given the giant number five in the bottom of the invitation. (Also, the next iPhone will technically be the sixth iPhone, since there have already been five of them: iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S.)

And in case you haven't been following every single iPhone rumor, here's what's expected of the new iPhone (though don't be surprised if these things are implemented in an unexpected way):

It's taller

It's expected to have the same width, with the added height bringing the screen size to 4 inches, for a resolution of 1136x640.

So, like

It's thinner

The back looks like this

Obviously, the i P h o n e kerning won't look like that.

Or maybe more like this

It's built with a unibody architecture, like Apple's notebooks

Here's a great post that goes into what that means in detail. (But basically, a stronger, better phone.)

This is maybe what's inside

If you'd like to know what's probably inside the next iPhone, this post by Anandtech is fantastic.

The classic 30-pin iPod cable is probably getting replaced by this

Expect the old, fat dock connector to be phased out of the iPad and iPods, too. You might be mad for a second, but it's a good thing, ultimately.

It'll plug in like this

And it might come with cool new SPACE headphones

In other words, boom

It's expected that after being announced being announced today, the iPhone will go on sale on Friday, Sept. 21. Oh, and if you're waiting for the tiny iPad, you're probably going to wait a little longer to hear about it.