Two things that seem natural fits to me for the 2016 iPhone: both sizes get a 3x retina display, and all vibrating alerts are replaced by a more powerful, nuanced taptic engine. I've not seen this rumored anywhere, but the parts that have leaked don't preclude the possibility. Both seem like something Apple would do to make this update feel less lackluster, and both seem pretty easy to keep secret until the announcement. What do you think?
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More hardware features in the 2016 iPhone
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This year will be that minor upgrade because next year Apple is switching to OLED according to the rumors. I wouldn't expect much this year to avoid disappointment. It will be minor speed bump and storage likley.
There is little need in increasing the resolution on the iPhone past the point where your eyes can resolve it. It would just waste processing power and batteries.
I read the rumors too, and I don't expect much. But sometimes Apple sneaks in little updates we weren't expecting, and since we've not seen any part leaks for the display or the taptic engine, I think this is plausible. Today's rumor of a haptic home button supports my theory too.
The 6+/6S+ already have 3x displays. I'm suggesting that this year they do it for the 4.7" displays too. They already have extra RAM and dual cameras to differentiate the bigger model this year, and they have a history of migrating features down the product line to bring things into parity. Plus we already know this year's phones have bigger batteries.
To be fair I think the non-Plus versions can use a bit of a PPI bump at this point--perhaps while quite a few people might not really notice it or care, it's likely quite a few would.
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It's not a waste. They already do 3x on the pluses, and displays are an arms race. Not sure if you've looked at a Galaxy phone lately, but their screens make iPhones look like old tube TVs, all dark and fuzzy. I know much of this is because of the super juicy look of OLED, but the insane pixel density definitely helps.
The only benefit i can see for higher resolution is for use in virtual reality headsets like a google cardboard. In that case, it makes plenty sense. Otherwise it would be a waste to the eyes and comes with a heft technical cost (increased gpu performance required).
I'm worried that because the new iPhone is going to look basically the same as the 6/6s and will retain the same screen size, they will not increase the resolutions. The only time they have without increasing screen size was in the iPhone 4.
At certain point the trade-off isn't really worth it, but at least the non-plus models can still be improved to some degree with quite a few people noticing.
The "anything more than Retina is wrong" police are everywhere. There is no escape!