And that's important to Americans because it means it goes on sale in the U.S. before then. This is called "evidence," in the iOSsphere.

The cosmopolitans at picked up on published reports that the iPhone 5 will go on sale in the Russian Federation, formerly the Evil Empire, in November, "with that date being 'almost immediately' after the US release."

They were quoting from the original story, in Russian, at . For the linguistically challenged, a brief item by said RBCDaily was "citing handset retailers it didn't identify."

The reason: The iPhone 4 was released there months after the U.S. release, "causing a large volume of unauthorized sales," as RBC delicately put it.

Perhaps the timely release is a byproduct of the way during the latter's Silicon Valley tour in June last year.