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

[lewisdorigo]

Current iPhone has a funky non standard resolution. Apple beats to the beat of a different drum, always has.

yea but even the iphone 5 had and still having a weird number so..apple is not making what resolution is in general on the market.. aka 720p or 1080p. They want their own for the app store and developers

The original iPhone had a 480x320 display, which is a standard resolution — HVGA.

iPhones’ displays are non-standard now, but they started with a standard resolution. With iPhone 4, they just doubled the resolution so existing apps would look and work the same way as before, and so it would be easier for developers/designers to take advantage of the improvements. Likewise for changing the aspect ratio for the iPhone 5: they increased the height of the display so that apps would look/work the same, and developers could more easily take advantage of the same.

If they’re increasing the screen size, and changing the resolution of the display, it makes sense for them to go back to a standard resolution.

(On a somewhat related note; a couple of months back, I calculated that a 4.5" iPhone with the same pixel density as currently, would have a 1280x720 display, and could have the same physical size as the existing iPhone. So my money is on that.)

 

[jabingla2810]

A rumour not even worth reporting.

They will be producing lots of prototypes, but they will settle on a screen size and offer only that one.

At a stretch, if they do offer two different sizes, they will be the same resolution to help developers.

Different screen sizes and different resolutions... this isn't Android.

 

[Serban]

so last year we have iphone 4s/ iphone 5c and iphone 5s=3 models
this year we will have iphone 5s and two iphone 6=3 models

 

[garylapointe]

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!!!

Obviously people who need it to fit it in their pocket wouldn't buy one that doesn't fit in their pocket. Or they wouldn't buy women's designer jeans. Regardless of gender...

I don't think one would fit in my (men's) jeans very comfortably. I'd have to factor that in before purchasing.

Gary

 

[Rogifan]

I'm sure someone else has said it but I can't see them doing 3 sizes...
When the 5c was introduced I immediately felt it was so they can make 2 different screen sizes the following year... the 5c becomes the smaller simpler phone and a sub brand in its own right, but is in reality last years tech, it's kind of a branding exercise, repackaging old tech as a simpler solution. The 6 is the flagship larger feature packed phone...

So people that like the smaller screen size are don't get the latest and greatest tech? That's not what Apple did with iPad last year. With the iPad I never felt it was right that those who wanted a smaller screen size were forced to buy an inferior product. For the most part Apple rectified that last year.

I fully expect Apple to have two iPhone screen sizes this year, but I don't expect them to relegate the current screen size to the 'budget' phone. Unless iOS 8 and the new phone(s) offer something that only works on a larger screen. But I doubt that will be the case.

 

[normanfox]

Please let this be true. I'd love sapphire glass on my iPad. If iPhone gets it there is good chance for iPads too.

ipad is always treated as second class citizen. iphone always get new high tech first since it is apple meat and butter. iphone got retia and touch ID first.

if iphone 6 get sapphire this year, ipad might get it next year at the earliest.

 

[kazmac]

this woman also agrees

As a woman who owns many pairs of designer jeans and has friends who do also, not a single one of us has any interest in putting our phone in our pocket. Who does that Definitely more of a guy thing.

Looking forward to seeing what Apple has in store for iPhone 6...the larger screen is a good step in the right direction. Finally.

I know several guys who keep their phones in their pockets, but I'm with you I'm not a phone in pocket kind of gal.

Once I see whatever the 6 will be (1 or 2 sizes), I'll determine if I hold onto my 5 for another year, or upgrade early.

 

[normanfox]

apple is retired of catching up with the competition by increasing the screen size every two years.

it makes sense that apple just add two more sizes and be done with screen size changes. everyone has their favorite size to choose from. one size can't fit all.

 

[BvizioN]

I will go for the 4.7inch. I doubt they release a 4.7 and a 5.5?? My fear if they do- is that the 5.5 becomes the flagship and gets a killer feature that the 4.7 does not get!

It makes no sense if they did. They did not do that with different sized iPads..!

 

[makitango]

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!

So damn true, at least imo. Have you guys seen many female iPhone users on the street? Most of them use the iPhone 4 and 4S. They rarely have a 5, even more rarely a 5S and uber-rarely a 5C. I actually never seen any besides some males who seemed very unsure what to take. I believe they like the size (it's actually damn close to the golden ratio), the prominent glass usage and the one-color-style. I use an 4S myself and I intend to keep using it until they come back to this reasonable size. Steve Jobs himself said that 3.5" was the perfect size for a pocket device.

 

[zone23]

My first thought is 5.7" na that's too big, but honestly until I see how Apple has designed it who knows. If they can get a 5.7" screen and still have a manageable phone size then I'm all in.

 

[unlinked]

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!!!

Phones are quoted by screen size not phone size. If they cut down on the amount of non screen space they don't need to make the phone that much bigger.

 

[thekeyring]

I imagine Apple will launch two new models with larger screens, give the consumer more choice and with that sell more iPhones in total.

Does this mean the iPhone 5S becomes the entry level iPhone?

Do they drop the iPhone 5C completely? Or is this the entry level phone?

Presumably, they will discontinue the 4S meaning the price points will go: 1) iPhone 6 2) iPhone 5S 3) iPhone 5C.

If there are two screen sizes for the 6, maybe the 5C will get killed off, too.

 

[Tiger8]

I will go for the 4.7inch. I doubt they release a 4.7 and a 5.5?? My fear if they do- is that the 5.5 becomes the flagship and gets a killer feature that the 4.7 does not get!

If they end up doing that, I think they will replicate the iPad Air and iPad rMini line; where both phones will have identical specs except for screen size.

We all know what will happen to the 5s; it will be discontinued and packaged in plastic as 5sc for $100 on contract, as for the 5c, it lives on and becomes the free device on contract.

----------

As a woman who owns many pairs of designer jeans and has friends who do also, not a single one of us has any interest in putting our phone in our pocket. Who does that Definitely more of a guy thing.

Looking forward to seeing what Apple has in store for iPhone 6...the larger screen is a good step in the right direction. Finally.

you ladies have the iPurse option

 

[thekeyring]

A rumour not even worth reporting.

They will be producing lots of prototypes, but they will settle on a screen size and offer only that one.

At a stretch, if they do offer two different sizes, they will be the same resolution to help developers.

Different screen sizes and different resolutions... this isn't Android.

Yes, but it isn't Nintendo either. If you make a screen bigger and just increase the pixel size, giving it the same res, then it's almost pointless.

If apple's iPhone comes in three sizes, then that's still better than Android's countless screen sizes, resolutions, phone specs, etc.

 

[trecb]

I hate to be “that guy”, but the math for this just doesn’t seem to check out.

What resolution would those phones be? It couldn’t be 1920x1080 (“Full HD”), because at 4.7", the pixel density would be ~468PPI, and at 5.5", the pixel density would be ~400PPI.

So if both phones had a 441PPI display, they’d both need to have different resolutions, that are both kinda near Full HD, but not quite. And it means two new resolutions for developers to support, rather than just one.

This rumour just rings false to me.

Yeah, the PPIs are completely off. If the iPhone 6 maintains the current aspect ratio of the iPhone 5/5S (1.775), then a 5.5" diagonal iPhone would have to have ~474 PPI and a 4.7" diagonal iPhone would have to have ~555 PPI, assuming the # of pixels along the width and height of the phone were to double (from 1136h to 2272h and 640w to 1280w), as they did from iPhone 3GS -> iPhone 4, which is necessary to allow for a 1:1 pixel mapping for 3rd party apps (or, more specifically, a 1:4 pixel mapping), which would essentially require little to no additional work to make 5/5S apps work well on iPhone 6. If that ratio is disturbed, any UI, icons, and images used in 3rd party apps would have to re-mastered/re-created so that they wouldn't be blurry and ugly (e.g. graphics would bleed into unintended adjacent pixels, much like they do on unoptimized Android apps), and touch input could also be frustratingly inaccurate, since some apps depend on the specific 5/5S pixel coordinate system. The only other option would be to maintain the same total amount of pixels currently used on the iPhone 5/5S (727,040), which would subsequently require a lower-than-retina resolution for the larger screen size, which I don't think Apple would do.

So that means we need a 474 PPI resolution for the 5.5", and a 555 PPI resolution for the 4.7" in order to maintain the 1:4 pixel ratio. According to Wikipedia, there currently exists only 1 commercial display that has a PPI at least as large as the minimum required for these screen sizes, which is the Vivo Xplay phone display that has a PPI of 538, which doesn't even seem to be used in any phone models currently, likely due to its high cost. There doesn't even exist a 555 or greater PPI display on the market that would be able to support the 4.7" display, which means the only option for that size would be to keep the same total number of pixels as the 5/5S, thereby lowering the PPI resolution to lower-than-retina, which, again, Apple would not do. Or, alternatively, Apple would have to invent a screen itself that has a 474 or 555 PPI resolution, which, firstly, they haven't historically made their own screens, and secondly, that would likely be incredibly expensive, and would almost definitely hike up the costs of the phone.

Therefore, this rumor seems to be totally false and mathematically impossible/improbable, and as much as I want a larger screen, I really doubt it will happen especially due to the fact that there are currently no displays on the market with a resolution at least as high as the minimum required resolution of 474 PPI, and if Apple would be the first one to implement such a high PPI screen, the costs for such a screen would likely be enormous.

 

[Sharkus]

Until the industry insiders / analysts / best guessers start actually detailing the resolution of the screens I'm not convinced a larger size phone is appearing. If someone claims to know what's going on, they'd have a good source and that source would know the resolution of the display.

Apple will try to make the process as painless as possible for developers. Look at how the retina display worked. Yes, developers had to make changes, but it wasn't that bad. Even the iPhone 5 transition was not too much effort.

If you were to add in a completely different resolution then you're looking at a lot of effort for quite a few developers. Just stretching assets will cause things to look bad, you would need to potentially have another full set of images for this new resolution. That might not be a quick change. Factor in that developers aren't just sitting around waiting for Apple to change things, they are working on their own plans and so this could drop as a new feature is being worked on, adding more complexity and time to their development process.

 

[Am3r1ca16]

The curved screen sounded so awesome though

That's ugly

 

[mr.bee]

I don't want a bigger iPhone.
The size of the 5 is perfect, bezel free or not.

It fits perfectly in my pocket and I can use it with one hand.

I can't believe they are abandoning this reasoning because of Samedung

 

[Santabean2000]

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.

Count me in as someone who wants a larger screen. Quite simply, my eyes aren't as good as they used to be and a larger screen will help. I don't want an extremely large screen, I have an iPad and obviously that's not pocketable, but a 5" or even slightly larger screen fits comfortably in my pocket. While you may not need or want a larger screen there are a lot of people who do.

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.

Apple is leaving a lot of money on the table here. Not just in the hardware itself, but bringing these people into the iTunes ecosystem.

There is no reason that Apple cannot offer a smaller iPhone and a larger iPhone and keep both camps happy. Again, this doesn't have to be one or the other, it can be both.

Man, I'm with you here, although my eyes are just fine.

I live in Asia where a lot of people have the larger devices. I have screen envy.

The reality is that I use my phone as a phone perhaps just 10% of the time. For 90% of its life a larger screen would better suit my needs. And I know I'm not alone.

 

[Am3r1ca16]

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!

Well it's time for those jean companies to adjust.

 

[mdridwan47]

since when do iPads have sapphire glass?

since when did I said iPads have sapphire glass? I said if iPhone get sapphire then iPads will too.

 

[Moonjumper]

I think they will only drop the 4" screen as top end phone if they can make the 4.7" phone to a similar overall size. Bezel less could manage it for width, but they would need to reduce the height more than they do in the mock-ups. It could work if the home button is touching the bottom of the device and the bottom of the screen, with the top end reduced to match. It might be difficult, but would look great.

The current iPhone still follows the @2x convention. 4.7" could well involve some kind of rounding (4.6894" for example would not be very marketable), and 441ppi is somewhere near @3x, so a possible 1704x960.

 

[lewisdorigo]

Therefore, this rumor seems to be totally false and mathematically impossible/improbable, and as much as I want a larger screen, I really even question the possibility of a larger screen size in the next iPhone particularly due to the fact that there are currently no displays on the market with a resolution at least as high as the minimum required resolution of 474 PPI, and if Apple would be the first one to implement such a high PPI screen, the costs for such a high PPI screen would likely be enormous.

I think that there will be a new, larger iPhone this year. But my money’s on 1280x720, at 4.5".

This would maintain the current pixel density (326ppi) and wouldn’t require significantly changing the size of the device (technically it could fit in the current dimensions, with a few millimetres to spare at the sides). Apps that aren’t updated for it would just be centred in the display, with black around the edges. Icons wouldn’t need to be redrawn for a new pixel density.

 

[apolloa]

So when Apple finally DO release bigger iPhones, and we see people complain as plenty on here don't think iOS7 works on the iPads screen, will be interesting to see what they think of it on a bigger iPhone screen..

I wonder who will be the first to spout that Samsung is copying Apple with bigger screens, and that Apple invented the bigger screen smartphone. Cause we all know it will happen... 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?

As for phone size, well I can fit my Nexus 7 in my jeans pockets let alone my Nexus 5, so you will ALL have no problem with a bigger iPhone.

EDIT: Oh, I see the blaming 'Samsung' for bigger phones comments have already been made in this thread....