Apple Reportedly Launching Two New iPhones with Larger Flat Sapphire Displays in September

[casperes1996]

Please... Please no!

I really don't want a bigger display, and I really don't want more pixels... Can we go back to 3.5" please?

 

[h1r0ll3r]

Mmmm.....5.5 inch iPhone Would make a great replacement for my Note 2.

 

[Spacial]

Apple is just playing catch up now, it should of offered bigger AND smaller iPhones at the same time long ago, but then again when it's making masses of money of them why should they bother?

Because they'll make even more money. Why it took them so long is a reflection of an aging fat & happy corporation.

One that's deluded themselves into actually believing no one knows better than they do. At some point as their luck begins to fade and they can no longer brag about high margins and fat revenues, the faithful will be freaked out.

What goes up, comes down, a fact that all too many followers fail to consider. It doesn't last forever.

 

[Trius]

As much as I want to start seeing part leaks.. I really appreciate Apple keeping all of this so quiet. I'm hoping they learned something with the new Mac Pro.

I miss the days of watching the keynote with no idea what they have up their sleeves.

 

[Swazaloo]

If this is true, I may have to hang on to my iPhone 5S for an extra year, and hope that sanity returns by the iPhone 7. If you want a large screen, for the love of Mike, get an iPad.

And no, I'm not saying Apple shouldn't produce larger screened phones for the no taste people out there, but please keep making a 4" phone with the top of the line components every year.

Do any women work at Apple? Have you tried putting a 5" phone in the pocket of women's designer jeans? The current one can barely, barely fit. The 3.5 model was much better. That's half your customer base right there!!!

Please, Apple, step back from the cliff before it is too late!

I am fine with the current size as well. But, as with anything.. you would get used to the new size, and then any other size would feel strange. That is why Android fans get their **** in a knot every time they see a tiny 4" screen. They are used to the 8" screen on their phablets. We are used to 4" screens so anything larger feels way to big.

 

[Cormac88]

I hope the screen will go right to the side edges of the new iPhone. I thought of that two years ago and wonder why Apple haven't done it sooner.

 

[rish]

This is rubbish...

...as I don't believe any analyst has seen any prototype of any kind. It's all speculation until hard evidence is produced. Yep a nice shiny thin ultrafast beautifully designed and aesthetically pleasing iPhone 6th generation would be most welcome with excellent os complete with health book (and anything else rumoured) and an incredible UI.

As for those who favour a certain brand that keeps getting mentioned here, I suggest you move onto your own forums. This is macrumors not Placedyourchosenhererumors. Go troll elsewhere.

 

[deconstruct60]

Nice job of clipping my comment so you change the meaning. You are misinterpreting my comment, and kidding yourself. The comment ended with "Cook's perfectionism or ambitious (re)design while the product niche remains empty or outdated." When you have a still-great Mac Pro box, don't have the line sit dormant for over a year while you perfect your new design.

Which doesn't make much sense. Stale Mac Pro updates in 2011-2012 are indicative of R&D investments back from Jobs' era as CEO. Sure Cook was in charge of "Mac division" at that point, but seems quite doubtful that Cook would have suppressed something that Jobs wanted to ship.

Then the new design has flaws such as needing to pay over $800 for 1 TB of internal storage,

Whether a flaw or not is context dependent. Folks that were already on NAS/SAN storage already this is a small or non issue. No one has to pay $800 for 1TB of fast storage. It is an option, not a requirement.

The focus on Flash storage only arrived after Cook took over? Not even remotely motivated. So the amount , $800, for a 1TB is tightly coupled to fixation on Flash storage.

and 64 GB max.

In at most 4-6 months that "max" probably isn't going to hold up. It is more a funciton of what Apple is going to sell as opposed to what the system can do. [ The "tech specs" being more so marking spin as to what is on the BTO in the online store rather than hard technical specs? ..... Again has Jobs fingerprints all over it. ]

They have a still excellent Mac Mini design, but apparently Cook and Ive are redesigning it.

Again the mini has been historically dependent on being a derivative Macbook design. The MBP 13" ( and MBP 15") that the Mini keyed off of were killed off by who??? It wasn't solely Cook's 3-4 year master plan.

Mini tracking the "ultra thin" concept of the laptops is goofy IMHO. The Mini would need some major rethinking if going to track the iMac 21.5" infrastructure elements.

Meanwhile, the mini is stale with HD 4000 graphics.

The non Retina MBP 13" is even more stale than the Mini. If you don't think Jobs fingerprints on that that tactic, then you are smoking something.


Not to mention the iMac 2012 which shipped before they could make it in sufficient numbers to meet demand. That was more so an example of shipping too soon.

Jobs track record wasn't completely uniform either. The "this would have never happened if Steve was still around" is more often than not cult worship rather than highlighting major differences between Cook and Jobs eras as CEO.

 

[tann]

Hopefully with a bigger screen Apple can improve battery life (more room inside!).

Apart from being a bigger screen, the extra area behind should allow Apple to push for bigger advances in the processors and also software based items that might have eaten through the 1400mah battery in the 5S so fast.

 

[saturn88]

I don't agree to the "playing catch-up" reference either; samsung just barfs out so many features it'd be impossible to think of a new one. Unfortunately they're almost always badly executed.

What was executed well? A "smart" phone with no copy/paste and no multitasking? Or antenna design which required a bumper case to place a call? Or would you say Apple maps was greatly executed?

The fragmentation on android will grow...

There is no android fragmentation. Android has a fluid resolution-independent UI, which adjusts to any screen resolution. iOS on the other hand, is the one with fragmentation. Apple rushed it to the market in 2007 and now they are stuck with dumb "pixel perfect" UI. So for every new device resolution/screen ratio, they need new OS version. Developers have to compile separately for each device. And you call in well-executed "smart" phone...

Bad execution of iOS is actually the main reason Apple is having a hard time releasing more iPhone sizes. So now Apple has to play catchup once again to completely rewrite iOS so they can have android-like freedom in the future with various screen sizes/resolutions.

This chart does not even include Apple TV and iPad Mini retina.

 

[macs4nw]

If this is true, I may have to hang on to my iPhone 5S for an extra year, and hope that sanity returns by the iPhone 7. If you want a large screen, for the love of Mike, get an iPad.

And no, I'm not saying Apple shouldn't produce larger screened phones for the no taste people out there, but please keep making a 4" phone with the top of the line components every year.

Do any women work at Apple? Have you tried putting a 5" phone in the pocket of women's designer jeans? The current one can barely, barely fit. The 3.5 model was much better. That's half your customer base right there!!!

Please, Apple, step back from the cliff before it is too late!

I try my very best to stay out of the pockets of women's jeans, and I'm mostly successful with that, however about that size of the iPhone, all that matters mostly is the overall physical dimensions, and I suspect, without having done the actual math, that a side bezel-less 4.7" iPhone would be very close size-wise, to the current 5S model, so potential buyers of the next iteration like yourself, who prefer the current size are covered, while those clamoring for a larger iPhone could revel in their new 5.5-5.7" model.

'Bout that cliff, I'm a little more optimistic and I believe that Apple still knows what we want, before we do.

 

[SvP]

What was executed well? A "smart" phone with no copy/paste and no multitasking?

yes, better than everything before. I consider that proven by the HUGE MARKET DISRUPTION (even with said limitations, can you imagine?)

Or antenna design which required a bumper case to place a call? Or would you say Apple maps was greatly executed?

I didn't say they were flawless, just better than the competition

There is no android fragmentation.

Lol, now you're just trolling

 

[redkamel]

reasons there won't be a larger screen:
-The 1st screen increase was in response to boom in iPhone's software abilities. There has not been another leap like that.
-Apple doesn't have to do it; they already make most of the handset profit. The market may like bigger handsets, but not Apple's market
-A new screen resolution will be a PITA and all the Apps, just updated for iOS 7, will have to be uprezzed again. Of course, if a developer programmed right, thats easy
-A bigger phone is not Apple-like IMO; its difficult to carry around. Apple devices have been becoming smaller, not larger. So a new iPhone with a bigger screen would need to be the same size or smaller. This is unlikely with todays tech. Maybe a bigger screen in iOS 9 or 10....
-Larger screen will lower battery life
-I doubt they will offer two sizes, or discontinue the 5c so quickly. That is too rapid a product line change.

What I think is more likely:
5c price drop, no touch ID
5s becomes second tier
6 with iPad mini style body, thinner maybe, sapphire maybe.

if the 5c had a touch ID I would be tempted...the metal 5s get chipped so easily.
Personally I want better battery life, comfortable to hold redesign, sapphire display, and a touch ID SDK release.

 

[AppleScruff1]

reasons there won't be a larger screen:
-The 1st screen increase was in response to boom in iPhone's software abilities. There has not been another leap like that.
-Apple doesn't have to do it; they already make most of the handset profit. The market may like bigger handsets, but not Apple's market
-A new screen resolution will be a PITA and all the Apps, just updated for iOS 7, will have to be uprezzed again. Of course, if a developer programmed right, thats easy
-A bigger phone is not Apple-like IMO; its difficult to carry around. Apple devices have been becoming smaller, not larger. So a new iPhone with a bigger screen would need to be the same size or smaller. This is unlikely with todays tech. Maybe a bigger screen in iOS 9 or 10....
-Larger screen will lower battery life
-I doubt they will offer two sizes, or discontinue the 5c so quickly. That is too rapid a product line change.

What I think is more likely:
5c price drop, no touch ID
5s becomes second tier
6 with iPad mini style body, thinner maybe, sapphire maybe.

if the 5c had a touch ID I would be tempted...the metal 5s get chipped so easily.
Personally I want better battery life, comfortable to hold redesign, sapphire display, and a touch ID SDK release.

A bigger phone is coming, the question remains which of the current phones will they continue to offer. I'd bet the farm on at least 2 different sizes, maybe even 3, but that's probably pushing it.

 

[apolloa]

Because they'll make even more money. Why it took them so long is a reflection of an aging fat & happy corporation.

One that's deluded themselves into actually believing no one knows better than they do. At some point as their luck begins to fade and they can no longer brag about high margins and fat revenues, the faithful will be freaked out.

What goes up, comes down, a fact that all too many followers fail to consider. It doesn't last forever.

Yeap, couldn't say it better, but when you are at the top like Apple, you can afford the cash to ensure you stay at the top as much as possible, just like they have by suing the competition or buying it's standards into the industry, like it's SIM standard.

 

[HiRez]

What makes sense to me is to keep the new pixel value an even multiple of the original iPhone. The aspect ratio is different, but what I mean is one pixel in the iPhone 6 represents X pixels of the original iPhone. This also makes it somewhat simpler for developers, when you can deal with even multiples to avoid weird scaling issues. 2X is essentially what we have now with the iPhone 5. Jumping to 4X might seem natural, but that's a huge increase in pixel count which is probably not justified for the screen size (in other words, you are just wasting battery and GPU cycles). So I would target something like 3X, where each pixel represents a block of 9 pixels (3x3) in the original iPhone resolution. 960 pixels on the short dimension is exactly 3 times the original iPhone's. With that you get something like this:

Current iPhone 5S/C: 4", 16:9, 1136x640, 326 PPI, "@2X"

New iPhone 6: 4.7", 16:9, 1704x960, 416 PPI, "@3X"
New iPhone 6: 5.5", 16:9, 1704x960, 356 PPI, "@3X"

Or possibly:
New iPhone 6: 5.5", 16:9, 2276x1280, 475 PPI, "@4X"

But 356 PPI seems adequate, as it is already higher than the current iPhones, and asking developers to deal with only 1 new resolution instead of 2 makes for less work for them. This is the model they use for the iPad Air/Mini, keeping the same resolution with different display size, and it works fine. Additionally, 1704 and 960 are both evenly divisible by 8, and computers (and system designers) tend to like things with that attribute.

 

[kdarling]

I guess a larger screen is pretty much confirmed by now. We see this 4.7 and 5.5 topic every other week now. Lol.

How things change.

Remember back when everyone was hoping for an iPhone Mini for the first few years?

 

[TyPod]

Hell yeah that would be great. Just as long as they are released sometime before December when my contract is up i'll be happy!

 

[lordofthereef]

The debunking is not just that the PPI is reported wrong, it's that the actual PPIs must be much higher - 474 for the 5.5" and 555 for the 4.7" - such high PPI screens don't even exist on the market yet, which means if Apple was to be the first one, it would probably be incredibly expensive to put them in every phone, raising the costs of manufacturing the phone and lowering their profit margins, which they would probably not want to do, making the rumor seem very unlikely.

It's a number that was thrown out there. The actual ppi of even the retina screen when it was leaked and in someone's hand (if you remember the gizmodo debacle) wasn't even known. So what if they quoted 441 ppi? "OOps, we calculated wrong." Because, well, that happens to the best of us.

 

[edcredible]

When is it coming out? where do I go line up? Can I just get them to deduct it from my bank account every time they put out a new phone? haha

 

[Wishbrah]

Would buy the largest size in a heartbeat. Any complaints about size are easily dealt with by habituation within 1 week of owning. Can't wait to upgrade from a 4S and have a large, incredible display.

 

[OTACORB]

This doesn't need to be an "either - or" situation. I agree that Apple should carry on with the smaller screen for those who prefer it. That said, saying that those who want a larger screen have no taste is BS.

Personally, I'm an Apple guy and am not moving to an Android device to get a larger screen, but a lot of people have. I know many people who aren't "Mac people" per say, but would have preferred to buy an iPhone but wanted a larger screen hence they wound up going Android. Why they want or need a larger screen is irrelevant, these are people who Apple could have as customers.

I like Apple and the iPhone, but I am one of those that gave up the iPhone for a bigger Note 3 and now that I have done it, I can't imagine using an iPhone with the small screen. Like you my eye sight isn't what it use to be and so I really appreciate the larger screen. However, it is way more than that for me now that I've owned an Android for a few months. The things I can do on this devices vs my iPhone honestly just makes me feel it is doubtful I will ever go back. Certainly I will always see what Apple is offering, but as of now they lost me.

I think Apple should offer up to 3 sizes. But they rarely do what anyone thinks they should. That in my opinion is eventually going to catch up with them. It is only a matter of time.

Also the person that says if you want a bigger screen get an iPad. That is the dumbest thing I've never heard.

 

[Vanilla Face]

If this is true, I may have to hang on to my iPhone 5S for an extra year, and hope that sanity returns by the iPhone 7. If you want a large screen, for the love of Mike, get an iPad.

And no, I'm not saying Apple shouldn't produce larger screened phones for the no taste people out there, but please keep making a 4" phone with the top of the line components every year.

Do any women work at Apple? Have you tried putting a 5" phone in the pocket of women's designer jeans? The current one can barely, barely fit. The 3.5 model was much better. That's half your customer base right there!!!

Please, Apple, step back from the cliff before it is too late!

Hopefully with a bigger screen Apple can improve battery life (more room inside!).

Apart from being a bigger screen, the extra area behind should allow Apple to push for bigger advances in the processors and also software based items that might have eaten through the 1400mah battery in the 5S so fast.

the 4.7" bezel-less phone would be the same width as the current iPhone, thinner, and only about 5mm taller (an almost negligible amount). Still small enough to use easily with one hand.

 

[trecb]

The debunking is not just that the PPI is reported wrong, it's that the actual PPIs must be much higher - 474 for the 5.5" and 555 for the 4.7" - such high PPI screens don't even exist on the market yet, which means if Apple was to be the first one, it would probably be incredibly expensive to put them in every phone, raising the costs of manufacturing the phone and lowering their profit margins, which they would probably not want to do, making the rumor seem very unlikely.

It's a number that was thrown out there. The actual ppi of even the retina screen when it was leaked and in someone's hand (if you remember the gizmodo debacle) wasn't even known. So what if they quoted 441 ppi? "OOps, we calculated wrong." Because, well, that happens to the best of us.

"So what if they quoted 441 ppi?" --> The problem is not that the PPI is calculated wrong, it's that the actual PPIs (555 for the 4.7") would be so high that such displays don't even exist in any phone models currently, which would make them prohibitively expensive to use a screen with such a high PPI, raising manufacturing costs and lowering profit margins, which Apple would not do. So the problem is not the incorrectly reported PPI, it is the fact that a larger screen would require at least a PPI of 474 and 555, which does not yet currently exist in any mass-produced consumer electronic device today, making the probability of a larger screen very very low.

 

[JohnSFO]

128 GB iPhone 6 please!

I switched to the larger Galaxy phones a year and half ago, but ready to come back if Apple finally releases a 5.5 inch screen. I feel it's time for a 128 GB phone too. Give us more options please.