New iPhone to be unveiled 10th September

Long-awaited new device - or devices - will have to take on a plethora of competitive Android devices

Apple's next iPhone will be launched at the beginning of next month, according to reports.

The precise date of the unveiling will be 10th September, according to technology blog AllThingsD, which doesn't give any indication about the source of the information.

However, the unveiling of the next iPhone - which could be known as the iPhone 5s rather than the iPhone 6 - would follow a similar pattern to previous years in which the new iPhone has been unveiled in September, ahead of being made available to the public a couple of weeks later.

The device will run on the latest incarnation of Apple's mobile operating system, iOS7.

Apple is thought to be attempting to find a way to attract users back to its iPhone, following the success of Android smartphones, particularly the Samsung's Galaxy S3 and S4 devices. Android now holds about 80 per cent of the smartphone market, while Apple's share of the market has declined to just 13 per cent, despite strongly rising sales and profits.

While the world's most profitable smartphone maker, Apple is facing a plethora of Android device makers, including Samsung, HTC and LG - the latter the producer of the Google Nexus series of phones.

Previous reports suggest that in order to combat the success of the Samsung Galaxy S3 and S4, Apple is looking to launch a series of smartphones with a larger screen than the standard iPhone. A bigger screen would make it simpler for users to examine and edit documents, enabling a bigger case to be made for iPhones in the enterprise.

Apple is also thought to be launching its next iPhone in a range of colours, in order to attract more users towards the device.