“Apple Inc.’s next iPhone, currently being manufactured by Asian component makers, will use a new technology that makes the smartphone’s screen thinner, people familiar with the matter said, as the U.S. technology giant strives to improve technological features amid intensifying competition from Samsung Electronics Co. and other rivals,” Juro Osawa and Lorraine Luk report for The Wall Street Journal.
“Japanese liquid-crystal-display makers Sharp Corp. and Japan Display Inc. — a new company that combined three Japanese electronics makers’ display units — as well as South Korea’s LG Display Co. are currently mass producing panels for the next iPhone using so-called in-cell technology, the people said,” Osawa and Luk report. “The technology integrates touch sensors into the LCD, making it unnecessary to have a separate touch-screen layer. The absence of the layer, usually about half a millimeter thick, not only makes the whole screen thinner, but the quality of displayed images would improve, said DisplaySearch analyst Hiroshi Hayase.”
Osawa and Luk report, “Analysts have said that the new iPhone is expected sometime in the fall. In May, people familiar with the matter said that the new iPhone will likely come with a screen larger than the current iPhone’s 3.5-inch display. A thinner screen could help offset an increase in weight due to the larger size.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz,” “Lynn Weiler,” and “Jack F.” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Photo of purported 4-inch ‘iPhone 5′ in-cell display surfaces – July 5, 2012
Wintek’s June sales plunge may signal Apple’s switch to in-cell iPhone touch screens – July 3, 2012
Next-gen iPhone to account for 70% of in-cell LTPS touch panels in 2012-2013 – May 29, 2012
Analyst: In-cell touch screens to slim Apple’s next-gen iPhone by 15% – April 23, 2012
Piper Jaffray’s Munster: Apple’s next-gen iPhone to be ‘Mother of all Upgrades’ (with video) – April 20, 2012
Apple next-gen iPhone likely to adopt in-cell touch screens by Sharp and Toshiba, say sources – April 20, 2012
Or not.
I’ll take keeping it the same thickness and adding 0.5mm of extra battery.
+1
I would take a phone 2mm thicker if it meant more battery.
With my 4S, I can not go for a three hour run, track my route with WalkMeter and listen to Slacker without killing my battery.
Heck, I’ll take a phone 3mm thicker if it meant more battery.
On a side note, I found the GPS more accurate on my old 4 versus my new 4S. I use quite a few mapping/tracking apps when I walk/run/ride and since moving up to my 4S, all of my tracking apps are less consistant compared to when I used them on my iPhone 4.
I head up a volunteer organization (working with the DNR), basically we create new and maintain existing single track (single narrow path dirt trails) in various government lands. At any rate…
We are constantly using iPhone for navigation GIS, GPS waypoints and tracks and I see data from a dozen 4 and 4s phones (and a few iPads), I literally can’t tell one track from the other. (and because of the precision we require we track waypoints VERY tightly)
Possibly your software has an accuracy error with the 4s, but for the apps we use (ESRI’s ArcGIS, Trails GPS & Gaya & a couple others) there seems to be no problem.
We also get far longer battery life even when keeping a GIS mapping or tracking app on constantly (if you are just tracking your path the app “should” be able to do that as a background task, which takes even less (significantly) power.
For Long (all day) active (i.e. onscreen) use of a GPS/mapping app I would recomend a morphie juice pack case (or another accessory battery). It will literally run GPS background track gathering AND an active mapping/GIS app all day long.
I would try another app (just to test, there are several free) and or take it to an Apple store.
On a 4 hour hike I used a GPS tracker app, an ordnance survey gps mapping app (which I was also downloading the maps for), listening to music, took 80 odd photos, made a few phonecalls, automatically received emails, and made extensive use of a custom map which is saved as a large pdf. This include a lot of time with the screen actually on, and I was down to 20% when I got back.
I consider battery life pretty good, but would prefer more – especially as seemingly at random I have the odd day (a couple in 6 months) at work where the battery just seems to drain just collecting emails and nothing else. I’m almost of the opinion they should make a larger battery version rather than having multiple storage capacities.
That is the way my 4 use to be. But not my 4S.
I use to charge every other day on my 4 but can barely go a full day on my 4S.
My battery does do better if I listen to music stored on my iPhone versus Slacker/iHeart/Pandora streaming.
Ah perhaps I see now… tylerlemke may be talking about Keeping a constant GPS capture & Keeping a mapping app active AND running a streaming music service (keeping 3G TX/R active) if you want to do that get an accessory battery (like the morphie)
Interesting side note, we are constantly in places where there is -no- cell service (shadowed valleys) and we normally turn 3G off: if the phone constantly “hunts” for cell service it really wears on the battery.
The 4S GPS accuracy is still curious, I just don’t see it (and this is across a half dozen 4S’s)
One thing I liked about my iPhone 4 was the ability to switch to Edge instead of 3G to save battery.
For my runs now on the 4S, I turn off bluetooth and wifi.
Regardless, I feel better now for complaining. My daughter gets the 4S and I get the 5 once it comes out. Hopefully it is good as gold.
I am not sure what normal usage is but my battery lasts at a minimum of 2 days before requiring a charge.
Same here. Sometimes I could go for three days, but.
Usually I keep a car charger / radio connection in my can so when I listen to the phone on my radio, it gets charged.
The advantage of a thinner and larger screen would be the potential for a thicker and larger battery. I don’t know anyone who would choose thinner over keeping the same thickness and adding battery capacity, especially when most people add a bulky case anyway.