[scratt]

Yes, but it is also naïve to think that they would compromise their next iPhone's design process by shortening it to react to what is actually a non-issue.

And when you consider that they are still to get all of their iPhone 4 manufacturing plants online then I think any change to Apple's long or short term development cycle is extremely unlikely.

It has always been easy to prototype new hardware, but not so easy to actually put things into production. This is the case for silicon, and all other components. Apple may have A5s on the bench in house (I know they do actually), and OLED screens with HD resolution (I made that up), but manufacturing them in quantity is another matter.

It is always the supply and manufacture lines that dictate products finally shipping.
Back in the day we were buying Motorola 68030s for a device that wouldn't come out for another year or so. We were paying £500 or more a pop for the development silicon because of the low yields. And there was no hope of putting the device into production until yields hit a point where the chips were cheap enough due to full production runs. All this takes time.

I'll even give you a specific example. I *know* that Apple has a non-Intel MacBook Air in testing inside Apple. Whether we will see it or not is another matter.