“The bigger iPhones, which have been widely written about over the last year, will come in two screen sizes, one measuring 4.7 diagonal inches and the other 5.5 diagonal inches,” Brian X. Chen reports for The New York Times. “The larger version will cost more. Unlike the older iPhones, which have somewhat sharp edges, the new ones have softer, rounded edges similar to those of the latest iPads.”
“To deal with concerns that a bigger phone will make typing with one hand difficult (the current iPhone has a four-inch screen), some changes to the design of the iPhones’ user interface will allow people to type or use apps with just one hand; there will be a one-handed mode that can be switched on and off, two employees said,” Chen reports. “The smartphones will include hardware and software that support a technology called near-field communication, or NFC, which allows devices to exchange information wirelessly over very short distances. It could make paying for things with a phone less of a hassle.”
“Apple has teamed up with American Express, MasterCard and Visa to support the payment system, said several people involved in the partnerships. With the deal, these people said, iPhone owners will be able to use their devices as a sort of digital wallet, improving their ability to pay for items at select partner merchants without handing over cash or a credit card,” Chen reports. “Along with these partnerships, the abundance of new NFC-enabled iPhones could jump-start mobile payment, which has so far failed to gain traction among American consumers… Some analysts think Apple’s entrance into the world of mobile payment will make all the difference. ‘Apple owns the hardware and the software here, unlike Google,’ said Josh Beck, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities. ‘Not to mention Apple has this huge cache of customer credit cards, and an affluent customer base.'”
Read more in the full article here.