“As rumored, Apple will release two new phones this fall, one with a 4.7-inch screen and another with a large 5.5-inch screen, a VentureBeat source with knowledge of the plans says,” Mark Sullivan reports for VentureBeat. “However, the 4.7-inch model will be ready to ship mid-September, our source says, while the 5.5-inch model is likely to ship several weeks or even a month later.”
“Our source says the screens are made of an extremely hard material that’s slightly harder than Gorilla Glass but not as hard as sapphire,” Sullivan reports. “That corroborates an earlier video report showing that the purported iPhone 6 screen is harder than previous models’ screens but softer than sapphire crystal.”
“Our source confirms that the upcoming iPhones will contain the new A8 chip. The A8 will run at a frequency of 2.0 GHz per core and will create noticeably faster response time and graphics rendering in the new phones, the source says,” Sullivan reports. “The new phones will support a faster flavor of Wi-Fi, 802.11ac. As in earlier iPhones, the Wi-Fi chip will come from Broadcom.”
“A socket is reserved for a near field communication (NFC) chip that will make the new phones able to do mobile payments (finally), our source says. Apple will populate the socket with a chip made by NXP,” Sullivan reports. “The fingerprint reader in the new phones will boast some minor improvements to speed up read times, cut down on false rejections, and improve security for mobile payments and biometrics.”
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