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We haven’t had any Apple rumors for at least a fortnight, so this week’s reports of an ‘iPhone 5′ and a small-screen iPad were overdue. Apple will come up with an LTE handset next, believes one analyst, helping the firm to leapfrog some of its increasingly powerful rivals and target early LTE movers like Verizon.

The speculation comes from a frequent source of Apple device premonitions, Ashok Kumar of Rodman & Renshaw, who published a research note saying the iPhone 5 would include LTE and would give Qualcomm an entry to the firm. “We believe the company has selected Qualcomm as its modem supplier for the CDMA iPhone as well as for the iPhone 5,” Kumar wrote. “The iPhone 5 will likely use a two-chip modem, allowing the company to create 3G and 4G products.” He added, in an interview quoted by CNet: “Switching suppliers for something as critical as a baseband (3G/4G) modem is a very complex and time consuming task.”

Of course, there isn’t much choice when it comes to CDMA modems, with Qualcomm the only serious supplier – or indeed LTE/CDMA combinations, should Apple want an integrated, single-chip solution for both networks. Talk of a deal with Qualcomm has been around for months, pointing to a CDMA iPhone that many have assumed would go to Verizon, perhaps before year end (though it could also be destined for other CDMA carriers like KDDI). Infineon Wireless, soon to be acquired by Intel, provides the W-CDMA baseband for the iPhone 4. The big issue for Qualcomm will be whether, in winning Apple for CDMA, it can persuade the vendor to convert to its W-CDMA products too, for future iPhone iterations.

It would be quite a leap from there to an LTE handset. Qualcomm does not expect its dual-mode LTE/3G chipsets to be in commercial smartphones until late in 2011, targeting its products first at dongles and data cards (and it will not make LTE-only silicon). Apple, for its part, has rarely chosen to lead the industry in adopting new radio standards – the first iPhone, launched in 2007, only supported GPRS.

Kumar is one of the Apple watchers who believes the firm is also working on a seven-inch iPad to join the current 10-inch model. It would also have a front-facing camera for video chat, something many felt was a major omission from the first tablet. The smaller size could enable Apple to lower costs, and cut retail prices, without cannibalizing the first iPad, and go head-to-head with the similarly sized Samsung Galaxy Tab, its most dangerous looking rival in this early phase of the market. But others feel the iPad is positioned mainly as a killer for the netbook, a format Apple has never liked, not the smarpthone or media player – and so should retain its nine-inch screen