Apple Preparing Between 70 and 80 Million 4.7 and 5.5-Inch iPhone 6 Units to Meet High Consumer Demand

[Naimfan]

That 4.7" is the sweet spot. That'll be my next iPhone.

I tend to agree. I was in a Best Buy the other day and found a 4.7" and a 5.5" phone that are least roughly comparable scale-wise to my iPhone 5. The 5.5" was just too darn big, and I have reasonably large hands. The 4.7" looked like the better compromise (and with a phone, everything is a compromise), being manageable but also sufficiently larger than the 4" screen on the i5 to be worth moving up to.

Put another way, the 4.7" still looked and felt like a phone; the 5.5" looked and felt more like a tablet.

 

[mpayne2k]

100,000 new Foxconn workers building these phones...great, I'm sure quality control is going to be wonderful!

 

[Hastings101]

100,000 new Foxconn workers building these phones...great, I'm sure quality control is going to be wonderful!

Don't worry, as long as there's an Apple logo on it nothing can go wrong

 

[Shlooky]

In-cell display technology for the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 has been said to be causing significant problems and The Wall Street Journal suggests there may be additional complications if the larger device also uses a sapphire display. Apple is reportedly asking component makers to prepare enough parts for up to 120 million iPhone 6 models in order to compensate for high failure rates.

I find this statement to be of concern. I just hope that released iPhone 5.5's are problem free.

 

[gnasher729]

100,000 new Foxconn workers building these phones...great, I'm sure quality control is going to be wonderful!

If Foxconn has 100,000 people building phones, how many do you think they have in quality control?

 

[Kebabselector]

Doubling down on secrecy working with the 5.5" iPhone but not the 4.7"? That would be bizarre

You never know!! I don't recall many rumours about the 5C until late on - so maybe the 5.5 rumours will start later.

 

[gbkrip]

I tend to agree. I was in a Best Buy the other day and found a 4.7" and a 5.5" phone that are least roughly comparable scale-wise to my iPhone 5. The 5.5" was just too darn big, and I have reasonably large hands. The 4.7" looked like the better compromise (and with a phone, everything is a compromise), being manageable but also sufficiently larger than the 4" screen on the i5 to be worth moving up to.

Put another way, the 4.7" still looked and felt like a phone; the 5.5" looked and felt more like a tablet.

Comes down to bezels for me. I couldn't handle a 5.5" phone with enormous top and bottom bezels. Really need to see either model in real life to make a decision though.

 

[gnasher729]

I'm going to take a wild guess and suggest that Dades was intimating that there are far more important things happening in the world currently to get "depressed" over, instead of the fact that people want larger screened smartphones...

Well, there were lots of things going on in the world to be depressed about in 2013. And lots of things in 2012. And in 2011, and in 2010. You are just lucky that all Americans didn't kill themselves in 1962 with the Cuban missile crisis. Or back when the Mexicans invaded Texas.

 

[LordVic]

Apple, nobody is switching from Android. Wake up. You are the reason people switched to Android.

When they come out with a 4.7" model, AND fix a few things i'm not keen on (though, MOST of my bucket list seems to be corrected in iOS8), I will likely take a serious look at the iPhone 6.

I've used just about every platform. The software, tools I use don't have any real platform requirements. I'd be perfectly willing to go iPhone6. The renders and leaks makes it look like a nice phone.

so "Nobody" might not be a great hyperbole to use.

 

[stuffradio]

I've questioned it since the beginning, it's not something Apple does by introducing different screen sizes in one launch.

Also take a look at the image in this article.
Image

Look at the distance between the bottom of the screen and the home button on all 3. Using 5s as the control, you can see 4.7 is making use of the available real estate by making things tighter - the screen is closer to the button. This way you keep the actual phone size as small as possible (something Apple does consistently, keeping the phone thinner and smaller). Then you get to the 5.5, and all of a sudden we have extra room to spare? With more distance between the button and the bottom of the screen? Not only that, the button isn't even centered between the bottom of the phone and the bottom of the screen. Apple/Ive/any designer would not allow something as important as the home button to not be centered, especially when there are barely any elements on the front to begin with.

Older straight on shot from this article.
Image

Every single iPhone button is centered between screen and bottom:
Image

You do realize the space between button and screen on the iPhone 6 5.5 dummy is similar to the iPhone 4, right? Source: I'm looking at it right now.

 

[sunapple]

Screensize.. In my experience you can get used to pretty much any screen size between 3.5" and 6" in your hands.

When downgrading () from the iPhone 5 to a Lumia 1520 (6") I found that 6" was pretty great and 4" seemed too small for anything. Then, I upgraded from the 1520 to an iPhone 4S. Suddenly 6" was absurd and 3.5" seemed like everything you could possibly need. Also, the iPhone 5 seemed very very long (even though I used one for nearly two years) and much bigger. (exaggeration was used)

So yeah, I really don't know whether 4.7" or 5.5" screens will be the "sweet spot" for my hands. I'll just see which one fits best in my pocket.

 

[rhett7660]

4.7 is what I am looking forward to!

 

[Chupa Chupa]

100,000 new Foxconn workers building these phones...great, I'm sure quality control is going to be wonderful!

What difference does that make? It's an all new phone so building procedure is new to all the workers. Apple has had all new phones in the past with no major wholesale QC issues. No reason to see why the 6 will be any different. ("Antennagate" was a design issue).

 

[Piggie]

I cannot believe the mockup photo here with the 3 sizes.

Why can't I believe it?

Because it shows totally zero imagination from the company that would make such a thing, not a glimmer of a thought or idea would have gone into taking the same looking unit and simply stretching it out larger.

Any half decent designer would look at the requirement, 'A Larger Screen" and knowing it's a hand held device, and overall size is an issue, pockets, holding in hands etc etc.

You would carefully design a case/body to be as small and snug around the larger screen size as possible, without affecting functionality and any design aesthetics.

Someone like Jonny Ive did not get where he is today by simply making the same thing bigger overall. He's be a laughing stock is that is the amount of his design imagination for a larger screen product.

I'm sure Apple would have something much sleeker than the white mock up we are seeing here. Otherwise, quite rightly Samsung should go all guns out to mock them for such a poor effort.

I can honestly see a future advert right now, where two people are sitting side by side: SGS6 perhaps.

Samsung guy says "wow, that's a really big phone, what's the screen size?"
Apple guy says "5.5 inches "
Samsung guys says "Really, that's strange, my Samsung phone has the same size screen as that, and has a higher resolution display, yet my phone is smaller than your one. Must be a pain trying to find pockets it will fit into"

Queue Apple guy looking and wondering why his phone is so much larger yet has the same screen size.

I can picture that advert now, if Apple are lazy and just do that.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Apple, nobody is switching from Android. Wake up. You are the reason people switched to Android.

Factually that is false. In your mind, it may be truth, but if you read past reports you'll find that a lot of consumers went from iOS to Android and back to iOS. One example: http://appleinsider.com/articles/13...switching-from-android-this-year-than-in-2012

It maybe be the 5.5" won't sway many Android users (back) to iOS, but I presume Tim Cook and Apple did some market research before ordering a whole mess of 5.5" phones. TC poorly projected iPhone 5C sales so another bad sales projection on his part and he totally loses his "supply chain management" guru status.

 

[ValSalva]

You never know!! I don't recall many rumours about the 5C until late on - so maybe the 5.5 rumours will start later.

Maybe the 5c rumors were later on but I do remember a lot of them from the case leaks with what seemed like awful colors down to the actual packaging.

It just seems strange that there are no 5.5" iPhone 6 parts leaks despite the chassis likely being set and them being made in the same places the 4.7" inch iPhone will be made. It's the same supply chain.

 

[2IS]

Can't wait to hear how Ive will explain that you'll need two hands to operate such a big phone. How will he bs his way out of it?

He won't need to explain it if he decides to ignore it all together.

 

[SMIDG3T]

That's quite a lot.

 

[mpayne2k]

He won't need to explain it if he decides to ignore it all together.

My guess is they'll say these are the most immersive iPhones yet!

----------

What difference does that make? It's an all new phone so building procedure is new to all the workers. Apple has had all new phones in the past with no major wholesale QC issues. No reason to see why the 6 will be any different. ("Antennagate" was a design issue).

I'm sure you're right. My main issue with Apple products is the color issues across the screen. My iPhone 5 has this issue with the top half going to a dull yellow. My iPad 3 had this (returned 2), my iPad Air had this (returned 2) and my rMini had this (returned 1) before finding the "right" color across the whole screen.

I know this may be more a technology issue than QC, but still, they need to be better at rejecting these screens in the factory before they get shipped out!

 

[Trapezoid]

Can't wait to hear how Ive will explain that you'll need two hands to operate such a big phone. How will he bs his way out of it?

Doesn't sound like you've ever used a 5.5 inch phone.

...or you've got tiny girly hands

 

[Col4bin]

Now would be a good time to buy apple stock, me thinks.

I wish.

 

[mpayne2k]

Factually that is false. In your mind, it may be truth, but if you read past reports you'll find that a lot of consumers went from iOS to Android and back to iOS. One example: http://appleinsider.com/articles/13...switching-from-android-this-year-than-in-2012

It maybe be the 5.5" won't sway many Android users (back) to iOS, but I presume Tim Cook and Apple did some market research before ordering a whole mess of 5.5" phones. TC poorly projected iPhone 5C sales so another bad sales projection on his part and he totally loses his "supply chain management" guru status.

More than the phone's screen size will be needed to sway so-called "android users," they're going to need to have a more customizable OS. Until iOS has more than just a row of icons greeting the user, most Android users are going to stay away!

 

[Trapezoid]

Many people with bigger hands like myself look forward to a larger iPhone.
I am 6'0" and this is my hand with my iPhone.

Lol...man the iphone really is tiny as all hell...Definitely long overdue

 

[Wiesenlooser]

Lol... the 5.5 version is simply a scaled up 4.7 iphone. Doesnt make any sense that the borders are bigger otherwise.

 

[Flood123]

I am only 5'9" and my hands are disproportionately large. Larger that most of my friends who are 6'3" and 6'4". I am looking forward to experiencing how the larger option feels in my hand so I can make an educated decision on the matter.