Apple to Unveil iPhone 5 at Cupertino Campus: Report

The Apple iPhone 5 release is apparently nearing, and a new report says the company will unveil the highly-anticipated smartphone on its Cupertino, Ca., campus on Oct. 4 instead of showing off the product in large exhibition halls in San Francisco.

With previous iPhone launches, Apple has rented out large venues like San Francisco's Moscone Center or Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. But Oracle's OpenWorld conference will be held at the Moscone Center this year from Oct. 2-6.

The unveiling of Apple's iPhone 5 will be the first major product event for new CEO Tim Cook, who replaced Steve Jobs after the company co-founder and longtime leader retired.

Quoting sources close to the company, the Wall Street Journal's All Things D blog says Apple will reveal its next generation smartphones including the iPhone 5 and perhaps an iPhone 4-plus on the campus of the company's headquarters.

Perhaps the release date was too much of a moving target to risk booking a large space like (YBCA), which has hosted a number of big product unveils in the past, wrote All Thing D's John Paczkowski. Perhaps, the company felt a more intimate venue was best for newly installed CEO Tim Cook's first media even. Perhaps YBCA was simply already booked. Whatever the reason, the world will get its first look at the next iPhone at Apple's Town Hall Auditorium in early October.

Apple has launched products at its headquarters before, as the iPad and iPad2 tablets were launched there.