“The Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus phones are total hits, with news flowing seemingly every day claiming that ‘demand remains strong,'” Ashraf Eassa writes for The Motley Fool. “That said, even though the iPhone 6/6 Plus ramps are likely to be robust for quite a while, there seem to be concerns out there that because the iPhone 6/6 Plus demand is so strong, Apple will have a tough bar to clear with the next generation iPhones (which I’ll refer to as the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus).”
“While I must admit to wondering if Apple will actually see a year-over-year sales decline in the coming iPhone launch cycle, I do think that the company can bring a number of enhancements that could drive excitement and, ultimately, year-over-year growth,” Eassa writes. “Here are some of the upgrades that I’m expecting and believe could drive yet another robust upgrade cycle.”
• Significant boost in performance [Apple A9], more memory [2GB RAM]
• Hugely updated camera
• Even more capable Touch ID
Read more in the full article here.
Slow news day?
Editor’s whip cracked hard on some poor bloke’s back.
I’ve got a real idea for an improvement:
How about a upgrade in the iPhone DSP to enable playback of hi-rez music files. I don’t want to carry another device like pono or sony’s new walkman. With Apple’s history with music they should be leading the way on this.
There is no way that Apple should pander to fools like you who don’t know any better that they can’t tell the difference between ‘hi res’ music and normal Apple lossless. THEIR EARS DON’T HAVE THE ABILITY TO HEAR THOSE FREQUENCIES!!!
There are a few young people who can tell the difference but when you consider the environment they will be listening to ‘hi res’ music, there is too much surrounding noise and the earphones they use don’t reproduce it anyways.
Try using your brain for something other than holding your ears apart.
It’s not about frequencies of sound, Mr. Anonymous handle. It’s about frequency of data sampling. It’s the difference between abridged and less-abridged data.
When you pack 5K pixels in a display and extend the color gamut you see richer, more detailed and life-like reproductions of images. One can get by on a 800x600px display with 256 colors, but there is no denying that more faithful reproduction of reality happens where more data is displayed. It may be more subtle for hearing, because most of us are more visual that aural. But that doesn’t mean that on many levels, a music file that sampled at a higher rate (which simply means it is missing fewer bits of the originally recorded analog sound waves) can provide a richer experience when coupled with commensurate reproduction hardware.
Did you realize that pixels are appreciated by the EYES and EYES are more sensitive to the bandwidth of the data?
Do you realize that the sample rate is DIRECTLY linked to the high frequency response of the system? Please study some science (physiology, physics and quantizing mathematics) before spouting off.
Asshole!
Oh, you mean like Apple Lossless codec… which already does that (look up the word ‘lossless’) DONE.
Those speculations have been out a while now. I think the AppleWatch will drive people to the iPhone who currently are using something else, because of the tight integration between the devices. Performance is already pretty good, but more is always better. I’m sure we’ll see a nice incremental update to the camera system. From what I’m experiencing, the fingerprint system works near flawlessly. I think phones are getting to the point of being as full featured as possible. The real innovations are in the Apps.
Do people really not understand that the majority of customers of Apple’s high end products do not run out and buy newer products to replace them every time a better version becomes available?
My iPhone 5 is two years old. It replaced a 3S which is now being used as an iPod. My lovely Retina iPad is three. It replaced the first original iPad I bought, which my wife is now using.
There are a number of other Apple products in the house: iMac, MBP, original iPod, etc. Every Apple in the house is still as beautiful and functions just as beautifully as the day it was bought.
The analysts out there need to understand that Apple products are truly a breed apart.
The recent analyst notion that the product line, iPad, is failing because people didn’t buy them in a highly increased manner one quarter really had me laughing. Are those of us who love their iPads viewed by Analysts as some sort of techy drug addicts needing a fix every six months or yearly?
Now, evidently, we need to worry about Apple’s future because Apple has made an iPhone that is such a fabulous product that everyone in the world wants one. And if everyone in the world buys one right away, then the product line bottom numbers will look crappy down the road ….
Oh my gosh! I would be really really worried, if I weren’t laughing so loud.
I believe the largest group of people upgrade their iPhone roughly every 2 years. The second largest group is roughly every year followed people like you who aren’t taking advantage of subsidies or “lease” plans and holding on to iPhones for longer periods.
For Apple, and others in the industry, upgrading yearly is a necessity not just for those on yearly cycles but just to stay ahead on the forefront of what’s available.
It’s business,plain and simple. Simple like you. Business doesn’t have an ego like you. It just needs to be fed,constantly. It’s about supply and demand. It’s about sales and profit. So quit confusing business with your need to act like you’re some superior being because you are one of the millions all over the world that enjoys Apple products. You are nothing special. So keep your pompous,arrogant,haughty attitude to yourself. You’re embarrassing.
Sounds more like an iP7 upgrade than an iP6s upgrade. Well, except for speed.
Three huge upgrades for journalists and analysts next year.
1. Facts.
2. Brain transplant.
3. Ethical injections.
Spot on, Can one impose New Year’s Resolutions on someone else? ‘Cause I would so like to see your list of three imposed on journalists. If that is not possible can we jam them in their mailboxes, or some other place, to make a point?
The courage to use fact, a brain to think and a heart to be ethical, hmmm the only thing I can think that I can think that would help this roaring, straw people tin cans of is the Wizard of Oz. Have to find a curtain first.
Ooooh you is funny.
When I was a girl there was this man on the news, Walter Cronkite. One evening my father pointed to him with his pipe and said, Janey, that’s what you call a journalist. Tough as nails but with a real heart, and with a calling to the truth; just like a clergyman but without the help o’ God.
Any of those pure newsmen left? Hard to find ’em on the ever-lovin’ Internet.
Yes Glendalough there are still such great people. Those who realize the great potential of the human race. Those who nourish fear and belittle others to appear great may be intense but they shall never endure. Others have greatness thrust upon them, some have a belief of greatness, and others show us how to reach inside ourselves, into our inner light and bring it out to shine, that human potential, that vision to be more than what we are. That vision will take us far and will be able to withstand the feathered eagle wings that no longer flies and soars but vainly attempts to shroud the world in darkness and desperately rips with its talons trying to rip out the heart and spirit of humanity.
Gaia shall prevail.
There was a news commentator from my country that had that impeccable touch in journalism, Peter Trueman. He was well known for his commentaries in the last minutes of each broadcast which he would end by saying “That is not news. But that, too, is reality”.
There are still such people and there will be such people, some who are not born perhaps that will see this and draw from the inspiration of what humanity can be. Fear not this darkness the future is bright and one day again, human will move with the light and vision of humanity’s true potential.
Give it a rest.
Spreading the word of peace and love is very restful.
Walter Cronkite was a paid shill. Your father was mistaken.
These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.
“First, we Americans are going to have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That to many, it’s going to be a bitter pill to swallow.”
It looks like our choice for the leader of what’s left of the free world in 2016 will be another grandson of the American financier of the Third Reich, Prescott Bush, or Monica Lewinisky’s ex-boyfriend’s wife. Too bad that Walter Cronkite isn’t around to tell us “that’s the way it is.”
Next, I suppose you’ll report that Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, but he is a front for the Trilateral Commission, so kiss your freedom, and your childish idealism, goodbye. You’re probably the one person who friended the Grinch on Facebook.
• There is no Santa Claus.
• There is a Trilateral Commission.
• Freedom is no ideal, it is a reality.
• There is no Grinch.
• I am not a member of Assbook.
• Walter Cronkite was no “journalist,” Janey.
I like when you make bullet-point lists. It makes it easier to sort out the terms of an argument. It bolsters my confidence, as if I stood at the lectern before a readership of 5,000, explaining a PowerPoint slide projected on the wall behind me.
“Each of botvinnik’s observations is correct in itself; however, a different existential standard applies to each. For example, is not freedom immaterial, and therefore not real? Or consider Grinch and Santa: more than mere fictions, both are emotional constructs, representing real neural processes, which trigger actions in the world.. etc. etc.”
I did play the Cronkite speech video but confess to nodding off at the eight minute mark. One day I may finish viewing it, should I grow bored arranging Cheerios in patterns on the tabletop.
don’t get all existential on me.
Apple will continue to make products that corner the high-end market whilst having cheaper products that put downward pressure on the mid-to-low range market.
This is a very successful approach and I see no reason to deviate from it.
… and these people charge for their “advice”…
Apple’s Touch ID is well protected by patents and Apple have shown they will pursue, and defeat, infringers in court. But, in any case, Apple deploys a hardware-based secure enclave on their own processor which is unlikely to be copied by the chip manufacturers for the same reason.
The Android model has failed. Despite the huge volume of Android devices, Apple now sits comfortably at the top of the tree and clearly own the premium end of the market. They have some consolidation to do in Europe, but once they are confident that they have seen off the clone makers, Apple can start to backfill, as they did with iPod, with new models aimed at the mid-tier.
Xiaomi have discovered that it is not so easy to sell stolen technology outside China, or to make money on Android devices. There is no barrier to entry here, and the next Android startup will eat their lunch in China.
Microsoft, perhaps, presents the only viable threat but Apple have shown that they can out-imagine and out-execute Microsoft at every turn.
Experience suggests that speculation on Apple’s long-term plans is pointless but any MDN reader will expect a 6S next year with minor Hardware bumps and new features in iOS of only because we have all seen exactly this happen with the 4/4S and 5/5S.
What would be really interesting to know is what Google are planning to meet the threat of Apple domination. That advice might be worth paying for.
Of course there will be a 6S at some time, it will be an upgrade in a number of way from the 6.
Of course there will be a 7 some time later than the 6S, and it will me an upgrade in a more significant number of ways from he 6S
I can continue this to the foreseeable future.
Some of the upgrade will be as rumored, and some will be a shock to all the Apple watchers.
I feel 100% my predictions are spot on, but I don’t get paid for that and I’m not looking for hits.
This time next year people will have the 6S/6S+ in their hands, and this time the year after people will have the iP7/7+ in their hands.
And I’m not charging for my insight into Apple’s future plans; just think of it as my gift to the MDN community for Christmas.
I get a new phone every other year via two year contracts. I just got the 6, and odds are my next one will be a 7. Whatever! It’s worked well for me so far.
Gonna take a lot to get this iPhone 6 out of my hands. Might be the first phone I kept for a long time.
If the iPhone 5s had a 4.7 inch screen I’d still be using it.
Tastes and user cases differ. If the iPhone 6 had a 4 inch screen, I’d have used my upgrade to get one. In the meantime, I’m effectively paying extra to keep my iP5 with unlimitedj data. Hoping the rumors of a smaller 6s variant prove true.
Fix all the broke programming first, then release new devices, Tim Cook!
Vega51, TOC? Troll or Child? All the broke programing?? Do you have something specific that affects a huge portion of the Apple community??
And new devices?? Like Samdung??? Every 6 er 4 months they have a NEW GREAT better than ever device that they ship but do not sell. Hmmmm that does not seem to be working so well for them at the moment.
Just saying.
it is plain that our friend james is not playing with a full deck of 52
One thing about iOS developers. They tend to fix and upgrade their Apps on a regular basis. I know, because I see apps with a new version update on a regular basis. If you run auto update on your Apps, check the log in the App Store. Developers know, if they want their software to succeed, it needs to be current, run without crashing, be free of bugs, and come out with added features and functions.
Hard enough to do just for iOS, can you imagine how difficult it must be in the Android universe with all the various forked devices and models. That’s why Android apps will always just be good enough.
You forgot a bigger battery.
Credentialing with the secure enclave.
Screen acts as speaker.
Mesh networking.
More accurate stair counting.
4k Video recording & Find a way to decrease
the height and width of the Iphone 6S Plus
“Even more capable Touch ID”
If this was one of their ‘big features’ the press would rip them to shreds. TouchID has been working since the 5S.. and now it needs to be ‘fixed’? It’s a fingerprint scanner, something IBM laptops have had for years.
It will be truly fascinating to see how they upgrade the 6S.
I see that iTunes is offering “The Interview” for rental or purchase.