“It will be an understatement to say that the iPhone 7 is the most awaited smartphone of this year, as even non-Apple fans have been showing great excitement for the device,” Ashish Yadav reports for MobiPicker.
“An anonymous tipster has sent us some important and very exciting information about the iPhone 7,” Yadav reports. “If the tipster is to be believed, then the production of the next-gen iPhone has already started at Pegatron and Foxconn, Apple’s two assembly plants. The exciting part of the news is that the iPhone 7 will get three variants!”
“So accordingly, there can be an iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, and iPhone 7 Pro (or iPhone 7 Plus Premium),” Yadav reports. “The addition of one more variant in the lineup has reportedly increased the amount of staff at the assembly plant to meet the required deadlines.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If this information is correct, then this would be the perfect time to make a naming change.
How about just dropping the numbers and the stupid off-year “S” designations and going with “iPhone,” iPhone Plus,” and “iPhone Pro” as use with the year in parenthesis for identifying purposes (resale, updates, etc.), as with Macs?
SLAM SHOT in the game of Apple rumor ping pong. 🍎🐻🐂💩 down a point.
I agree with MDN. How about the naming as with Macs?
iPhone/iPad Air (year)
iPhone/iPad (year)
iPhone/iPad Pro (year)
Makes sense except for one thing. iOS isn’t a professional OS.
Thus, iPhones should be:
iPhone mini (~4″ screen)
iPhone (~4.7′ screen)
iPhone plus (~5.5″ screen)
Likewise, iPads should be iPad mini, iPad, and iPad plus.
Apple’s lack of care in managing clear definitions mean that Air and Pro designations just lead to confusion.
I’ve been saying that since iPhone 4S. Drop the “S” and use the year.
How about feature parity. Do an iPhone 7 SE, an iPhone 7SE PRO, an iPhone 7, an iPhone 7 PRO, an iPhone 7 Plus, and an iPhone 7 Plus PRO. All the PRO models have ALL the PRO features. That way you can get all the features you want regardless of what size screen you prefer.
What exactly is a professional phone? Is this like GMC where they just tart up a Chevy and say it’s Professional Grade?
What IS with that?
Is it going to be something similar in concept (still not sure what that is) to what separates an iPad Pro from an iPad? Does it come with a short Apple Pencil Stub?
What’s next… the Apple Watch Pro?
According to previous speculation, the “Pro” (if it’s not just the larger screened “Plus”) gets the double lens cam and an extra dollop of RAM for two differentiators – one obvious and marketable. (Which I’ll guess, it it happens, will be more dividing capture into luminance and chroma like one of the new Chinese phones to increase “effective sensor area”, and not wide angle + “regular” (semi-wide) perspective lenses, a la the LG G5, nor 3D-ish).
BTW – the rumor leaves “weasel room” to conform to the earlier “apparently emerging consensus” that there will only be one new biggest screened phone, i.e., given “three models,” though the rumor may have the names wrong (because all the definitions established by marketing the last two years would be contradicted), the “iPhone” could be the re-christening of the refreshed 4″ SE, the newly plussed plus the 4.7, and the pro the 5.5…. …jus’ sayin’…..
…can’t tell your models without a scorecard…..
This is getting as bad as Microsoft. I’ll wait for the iPhone 7 Plus Professional for Enterprises please. /s
Where’s the iPhone 7-Amateur? That’s the one I want.
Too funny
Of course, if losing the ‘S’ designation means that they’ll have to start upgrading the body style every year, the stock will tank, because that means a huge loss in economies of scale, a decrease in R&D time and an associated decrease in upgrade features per release, a giant burden on the accessories partners and manufacturers, and counter-intuitively, a decrease in the rate of user upgrades for most people.
On the other hand, they may go to a 2-year upgrade cycle, with different lines (SE, standard, and Pro) each getting their incremental boost at a different time of the year, in an attempt at keeping perceived pipelines fresh.
Apple is spending billions on R&D the way Microsoft used to, with about as much to show for it. Scary and rather depressing. I hope there’s something coming soon to rekindle the awe. I’ve been Apple since the ’70’s, still got stock from then as well, and there’s hardly been a bigger fan, and while I won’t likely cross the fence, I miss those days of excitement about it.
The reality is that a lot of people are now moving to a yearly upgrade cycle. The barriers have been removed with the Apple upgrade program and all the carriers will be joining in to offer the same. Therefore changing the naming makes sense and even the form factor if it is going to stimulate sales.
Ok, so far we have…
Plus
Special Edition (SE)
Pro
Air
Next we will have
Deluxe
Super
Mega
And the one I personally can wait for…
Up to 50% more absorbent.
Of all the new innovation, that we don’t have a more absorbent iPhone is a shame. The iPhone 6 can barely absorb the smallest spills. C’mon Tim Cook!
If SJ was still alive we would have super mega deluxe iPhones that were AT LEAST 60% more absorbent!!
Just another attempt by Apple to suck out more money from people. A “pro” iPhone. Come on already. $1,500 to boot too.