“The world’s most valuable company plans to launch three new phones soon that keep the edge-to-edge screen design of last year’s flagship, according to people familiar with the matter,” Mark Gurman and Debby Wu report for Bloomberg. “The devices will boast a wider range of prices, features and sizes to increase their appeal, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing unannounced products.”
“There’ll be a new high-end iPhone, internally dubbed D33, with a display that measures about 6.5-inch diagonally, according to the people familiar with the matter. That would make it the largest iPhone by far and one of the biggest mainstream phones on the market,” Gurman and Wu report. “It will continue to have a glass back with stainless steel edges and dual cameras on the back. The big difference on the software side will be the ability to view content side-by-side in apps like Mail and Calendar. It will be Apple’s second phone with a crisper organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, screen.”
“Apple also plans an upgrade to the current iPhone X with a 5.8-inch OLED screen, which is internally dubbed D32, the people said. The main changes to the new OLED iPhones will be to processing speed and the camera, according to the people familiar with the devices,” Gurman and Wu report. “Perhaps the most significant phone will be a new, cheaper device destined to replace the iPhone 8. Codenamed N84, it will look like the iPhone X, but include a larger near 6.1-inch screen, come in multiple colors, and sport aluminum edges instead of the iPhone X’s stainless steel casing. It will also have a cheaper LCD screen instead of an OLED panel to keep costs down. The cheaper version’s aluminum edges won’t necessarily be the same color as the colored glass back, simplifying production, one person familiar with the matter said.”
“While planning the new devices, Apple has altered the names multiple times,” Gurman and Wu report. “It has at least considered branding the new premium phones the ‘iPhone Xs,’ indicating that they’re an upgrade to last year’s iPhone X, the person said. The company has also weighed eschewing the ‘Plus’ label for the larger model…”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: KISS:
• 5.8-inch iPhone (2018)
• 6.1-inch iPhone (2018)
• 6.5-inch iPhone (2018)Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains. ― Steve Jobs
Great lineup. Fingers crossed the SE is still available with better specs because I need to replace my 2.5 year old model. And the trillion dollar question, what about the NOTCH? …
I want a small iPhone X at $700. (iPhone 4 size.)
I want a small iPh at $649, earphone jack, shut-off button on top edge and a Siri that successfully graduated from reform school, with “Digital Asst” designation.
Notch? I don’t like it, but I’ve given up.
The ‘S’ is back.
iPhone XS
Now with turbo.
Removing the ‘plus’ label from iPhone is fine but I’ll be much happier when they remove the ‘minus’ connotation from the Mini…
I concur with MDN’s naming schema
Here’s why I think MDN’s naming scheme would backfire.
Of the three new iPhones, the 6.1-inch iPhone its rumored to use a 2-year-old CPU (the A10), less RAM, no Force-Touch, etc. This phone needs a special identifier (like the “SE”) to separate it from the primary 2018 phones which will have the latest/greatest technologies. Otherwise, Samsung and others will focus in on Apple recycling old CPUs and technologies and passing them off as the latest/greatest things.
So my guess:
– The new iPhone SE (which will be the 6.1″ LCD phone)
– The new iPhone X (which will come in 5.7″ and 6.5″ variants)
“– The new iPhone SE (which will be the 6.1″ LCD phone)”
All good points on naming conventions that would clear up the confusion, as well as, shield criticism from releasing new models with older specs.
One suggestion I would like to see happen is rename the SE 6.1” to Plus, and continue the smaller size as the SE …
The evolution of the iPhone is progressing as I predicted several years ago. The iPhone now spans the small to medium class of portable displays. The iPad spans the range of large to extra-large portable displays. And the iPad mini is left hanging out in an awkward in-between zone – substantially smaller than the iPad 9.7″, but with a diminishing size advantage over the latest mega-iPhone.
Based on this evolution, I believe that the iPad mini will disappear sooner rather than later.