iPhone 5 Out For Carrier Testing?

href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/aug/02/iphone-october-september-more-likely">According to the Guardian, the iPhone 5 is already out to carriers for testing, hinting at a sooner rather than later launch date.

my carrier sources tell me that the boxes in which the new iPhone hardware is encased have been transported to carriers for testing. This is an important step in the release cycle for any phone…The next iPhones go for their testing inside locked and sealed boxes so that the carriers can carry out checks on their network compatibility in their labs. It’s very high security, as you could guess; my understanding is that barely anyone inside the carriers gets to open those boxes, and even when they do the hardware is encased in a dummy body which means there’s no clue to what the actual phone will do.

I think we can all imagine that Apple would have super-tight security for the next iPhone release in the wake of the iPhone 4 being accidentally ditched at a bar like it famously was. Encasing the iPhone 5s in boxes so that no-one can get to them? That sounds more or less right — wasn’t there something similar with the original iPad, where it was rumored that a couple of major publishing houses had them, but under strict lock and key?