Rumors surrounding the next generation iPhone have been circulating for months; the latest of which claim that Sony will be supplying the camera for the upcoming iPhone 5.

Sony CEO Howard Stringer may have accidentally unveiled that his company will be providing the camera sensors for the iPhone 5 at a tech event organized by the Wall Street Journal. He repeatedly talked about Apple and Steve Jobs and said, “It always puzzles me,” he said. “Why would I make Apple the best camera?” However, it wasn’t clear what Apple device he was talking about.

Earlier in the discussion he talked about the devastating Japan earthquake and how it affected the operations of up to 15 Sony factories. While some pants were up and running, he said, Sony was still in talks with the government about its decision to limit power supply to 6-hours at a time. He vaguely said that the slowdown in Sony’s activity might affect Apple.

Although nothing is clear, Stringer’s comments corroborate an Electronista February report that semiconductor Omnivision, which supplied camera sensors for the iPhone 3GS and iPads didn’t get the account this year. The reason behind this change of heart is that Apple didn’t think Omnivision could deliver an upgraded 8 megapixel camera sensor in time for a June iPhone release.

It seems that the next generation iPhone release may have to be delayed either way. A report by Japanese blog, Macotakara.jp surfaced this week saying that Apple has yet to order many iPhone 5 components, and predicted a fall release date for the next generation phone. Also PCmag reported that Apple wanted to focus more on software than hardware at this year’s WDC.

“At this year’s conference we are going to unveil the future of iOS and Mac OS,” said Apple’s Philip Schiller. “If you are an iOS or Mac OS X software developer, this is the event that you do not want to miss.”