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Iphone Displays IOS Apple Hardware Technology

Apple Could Launch Two New Full-Screen iPhones Next Year (theverge.com) 117

Reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo expects to see two new full-screen iPhones next year: one will have a 6.5-inch OLED display, essentially making it a Plus version of the iPhone X; and the other will have a 6.1-inch LCD display, likely making it more like a full-screen version of the current Plus-sized iPhone. Both are said to have the notch. The Verge reports: In his research note, which was reported by MacRumors, Kuo writes that Apple is hoping to "satisfy various needs of the high-end market" by expanding its full-screen product line. At the high end will be the 6.5-inch OLED iPhone; beneath that will be an updated version of the 5.8-inch OLED iPhone X; and finally, the 6.1-inch LCD iPhone will sit below both them. Kuo predicts that the 6.1-inch phone will be priced somewhere between $649 to $749 and be set apart by having a less-dense screen resolution, offering a worse picture. If Apple does introduce a 6.1-inch LCD iPhone, $749 certainly seems too cheap for it to sell at -- the iPhone 8 starts at $699 as it is, and the 8 Plus starts at $799. The 6.1-inch phone sounds like a step up from the existing Plus model, so it would make more sense to sell it for, say, $899, right between a refreshed version of the Plus and a refreshed version of the X.
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Apple Could Launch Two New Full-Screen iPhones Next Year

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  • Electronic garbage (Score:4, Insightful)

    by invictusvoyd ( 3546069 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @02:11AM (#55545595)
    The rate at which companies are churning out phones should be generating a lot of e-waste. Shouldn't there be some effort to produce long lasting hardware? I hate to change a phone every year or so .
    • by BlacKSacrificE ( 1089327 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @02:14AM (#55545607)

      I hate to change a phone every year or so .

      Who says you have to? A modern flagship phone is good for at least two years, and if the S4 I recently handed off to a relative is anything to go by, significantly longer.

      You choose to update every year, there's not a gun to your head, and if you are as concerned about e-waste as you claim to be, this should not even be a question in your mind.

        • My iPhone 5 is still going strong. I have a 5S at home waiting to be formatted and put into service, but meh, the 5 still works.
          • My iPhone 5 is still going strong. I have a 5S at home waiting to be formatted and put into service, but meh, the 5 still works.

            When it comes to highly networked electronic devices, "strong" is not merely defined by functionality. It is also defined by support. I believe the iPhone 5 is a 32-bit platform, and support stopped at iOS 10.

            • by The123king ( 2395060 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @05:36AM (#55545973)
              Big banks still primarily use DOS software. I'm sure support for DOS was phased out over 20 years ago. If the main financial institutions still trust a 20 year old operating system, i don't think my slightly out-of-date iPhone is really that much of a problem.
              • Big banks still primarily use DOS software. I'm sure support for DOS was phased out over 20 years ago. If the main financial institutions still trust a 20 year old operating system, i don't think my slightly out-of-date iPhone is really that much of a problem.

                Are they actually using 16 bit "DOS", or are they using a "green screen terminal environment", such as:
                -IBM AS/400, System/390, System z
                -DEC / Compaq / HP "OpenVMS" running on Alpha / VAX hardware (Open VMS is still actively developed and supported)

              • I very much doubt that they do. Certainly none of the ones that I've worked with do, and if you can name one that does then I'll be very happy to avoid them like the plague. They sometimes have quite baroque back ends (I know of one financial services company that uses Smalltalk for their core back-end infrastructure and wraps it in Java for the middle layer, for example). I know some that use FreeBSD, quite a few that use VMS and more that use System/z. All of these are still supported and you'd find i
              • Big banks still primarily use DOS software. I'm sure support for DOS was phased out over 20 years ago. If the main financial institutions still trust a 20 year old operating system, i don't think my slightly out-of-date iPhone is really that much of a problem.

                A large bank must adhere to a lot of regulation to simply operate. If it has proven that it can properly mitigate risk by running DOS or some other antiquated system, then they've likely got the controls in place to prevent a data breach.

                It's rather pointless to even try and compare that to the average citizen who doesn't give a fuck about security or privacy, and couldn't define risk mitigation if their life depended on it.

              • Most banking systems don't live on the open Internet.
            • My iPhone 5 is still going strong. I have a 5S at home waiting to be formatted and put into service, but meh, the 5 still works.

              When it comes to highly networked electronic devices, "strong" is not merely defined by functionality. It is also defined by support. I believe the iPhone 5 is a 32-bit platform, and support stopped at iOS 10.

              But 5s has A7 chip which can run 64-bit, so he shouldn't have a problem because he has one.

          • by dj245 ( 732906 )

            My iPhone 5 is still going strong. I have a 5S at home waiting to be formatted and put into service, but meh, the 5 still works.

            I bought a 5s myself just a couple months ago. It's all the phone I really need.

            Smartphones are following the same path as PCs in the 90's. Back then you needed to spend $1000+ (~$1600 in today's money) to get a usable machine, and it was obsolete in 2-3 years. As smartphones mature further (perhaps we are already or nearly there), we will get to point where we are at with laptops and desktops now- the machine is fine for 5 years or more.

      • I hate to change a phone every year or so .

        Who says you have to? A modern flagship phone is good for at least two years, and if the S4 I recently handed off to a relative is anything to go by, significantly longer. You choose to update every year, there's not a gun to your head, and if you are as concerned about e-waste as you claim to be, this should not even be a question in your mind.

        Who says you have to? Greed does.

        Every year new models are marketed with the "best" whizz-bang hardware, and yet they are somehow unsupportable after 2-3 years (which would also include your S4) They're now manufactured with sealed cases and non-replaceable batteries to prevent upgrades or maintenance.

        Put another way, how many other $500+ electronic devices in your life do you replace as often as you do a smartphone? You would be rather pissed if you were forced to replace HDTVs, laptops, desktops, musi

        • But that's what we did do...when those devices came out. Now they are "appliances". When the smart phone is just another appliance, things will level out. The marketing concepts of "Smart" phones are what, 10 years old?

          I guess another 5-10 years or so until smart phones level out, then another generation will come along and all the new cool kids will start implanting chips into themselves.

          • Smart phones have levelled out. For most people, including me a Galaxy S5 is just as good as an S8 because I don't really do anything performance intensive on it. Better in fact because of the removable battery. And the trend for future phones from both Apple and Android seems to be to up the price, not have a removable battery and even remove things like headphone jacks.

            Yeah, a Snapdragon 835 in an S8 might get better benchmarks but it's not worth losing a removable battery over. Like I say only use the ph

        • which would also include your S4

          Speak for yourself. Mine has received security updates this year, and according to the change log those were back-ported even to 4.4 Kitkat so you don't even have to have upgraded to Lollipop to be "supported".

      • You can continue to use them unless they break. My s4 lasted only 2 years before it stopped reading the SIM. My s2 before that lasted 3,5 years which is not half bad. But if the hardware lasted a bit more I could see myself using a smartphone for at least 5 years.
    • by phayes ( 202222 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @02:52AM (#55545701) Homepage

      Then don’t renew every year but every 2 or 3 or 4 or 5. iPhones are generally supported by Apple with updates to be OS for more years than android phones are. Besides which, Apple will take back and responsbly recycle old phones when you buy new iPhones at an Apple store.

    • The rate at which companies are churning out phones should be generating a lot of e-waste. Shouldn't there be some effort to produce long lasting hardware? I hate to change a phone every year or so .

      Yeah but there's not nearly as much money in that.

    • The rate at which companies are churning out phones is roughly equal to the rate at which consumers voluntarily chose to exchange money for phones. Sure they pay for slick marketing campaigns, but that's just the point -- they have to convince the masses who, ultimately, have the last word.

      That's the concurrently liberating-and-frustrating thing about living in a free world -- by decentralizing decision making we've also diffused responsibility. If we all cared deeply about e-waste, then we would collective

    • by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      Most people don't change phone every year despite companies telling them they should.

      See : https://danluu.com/android-upd... [danluu.com]
      This is an article telling how many outdated Android devices there are. Normally, this is a bad thing, and it is the take of the article. However, it shows that a lot of people don't buy into that planned obsolescence thing and that phones last much longer than a year or so. If you look at the end of the curve, you'll see that 30% of devices are at least 3 year outdated. Which mean the

    • by MouseR ( 3264 )

      You dont have to. I used my 4s until I upgraded to a 6+ that I still use today.

      Maybe next year. I'm not keen on upgrading for an issue of megapixels. Not a photograph. And I dont care for failing oled screens.

    • That's why I don't. I make a point of trying to hold mine for two versions before I get a new one. Obviously an unforeseen "disaster" can interfere with that so I ended up going from an iPhone 6 to an iPhone 7 Plus when my phone found its way into the washing machine (My wife is convinced I did that on purpose. I did not) but I wasn't even thinking about upgrading until the iPhone 8 came out. Didn't see the "X" coming and kind of don't care about it. Hell I was happy with my 6 when it got killed. Just becau
    • by Kohath ( 38547 )

      The rate at which companies are churning out phones should be generating a lot of e-waste. Shouldn't there be some effort to produce long lasting hardware? I hate to change a phone every year or so .

      What if you gave up the idea that "e-waste" is sinful? Then you could just enjoy your life and get a new phone when you want one, without unneeded mental/emotional hangups ruling your behavior.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Dear Apple, Google, and Samsung,

    There are only two hardware features I'm looking for in a phone:

    1. No more than 4" tall HD screen (at least 1920x1080).
    2. Removable 6000 mAh battery (hint: make the damn phone thicker).

    The first one to make a phone with both features (* with the "latest version of the OS") gets my business.

    • by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @05:01AM (#55545907)

      Dear Consumer,

      We no longer give a shit what features you want. You'll get what makes us the most money and like it.

      Fuck you, and have a nice day.

      Hugs and Kisses,

      - Apple, Google, and Samsung

      • Dear Consumer,

        We no longer give a shit what features you want. You'll get what makes us the most money and like it.

        Fuck you, and have a nice day.

        Hugs and Kisses,

        - Apple, Google, and Samsung

        That's a bit of an exaggeration but I applaud you policy of hating Apple, Google and Samsung equally.

        • Dear Consumer,

          We no longer give a shit what features you want. You'll get what makes us the most money and like it.

          Fuck you, and have a nice day.

          Hugs and Kisses,

          - Apple, Google, and Samsung

          That's a bit of an exaggeration but I applaud you policy of hating Apple, Google and Samsung equally.

          A bit of an exaggeration? Not really. Try and remember a feature on a smartphone that consumers actually asked for.

          A super-mega-retina-grade display on a 5" screen? Rather pointless, but let's add $100 onto the MSRP anyway.

          Remove the headphone jack? Zero consumer demand for that, but how about wireless earbuds at 5x the cost. What a bargain!

          Non-replaceable batteries? Yup, another revenue generating feature no one asked for, but let's make sure every device has this "upgrade".

          All-glass design? Yes, pl

          • by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @09:51AM (#55546945)

            Dear Consumer,

            We no longer give a shit what features you want. You'll get what makes us the most money and like it.

            Fuck you, and have a nice day.

            Hugs and Kisses,

            - Apple, Google, and Samsung

            That's a bit of an exaggeration but I applaud you policy of hating Apple, Google and Samsung equally.

            A bit of an exaggeration? Not really. Try and remember a feature on a smartphone that consumers actually asked for.

            A super-mega-retina-grade display on a 5" screen? Rather pointless, but let's add $100 onto the MSRP anyway.

            Remove the headphone jack? Zero consumer demand for that, but how about wireless earbuds at 5x the cost. What a bargain!

            Non-replaceable batteries? Yup, another revenue generating feature no one asked for, but let's make sure every device has this "upgrade".

            All-glass design? Yes, please make my device FAR more breakable, and don't forget the back too (said no consumer ever.)

            10MP cameras and 4K recording? Tack on another $100 to the MSRP.

            Discounted phone price with contract? Yeah, no. We'll just give you a full MSRP 2-year loan instead. That way, it won't seem like we're ripping you off.

            About the only damn thing that has come out lately that consumers actually needed was some level of water resistance. Of course, this benefit was pretty much voided with the all-glass design, since there's far more revenue to be made with dropping smartphones vs. dunking them.

            Sadly, I stand by my "exaggeration".

            I can't say I missed small displays, larger displays make browsing easier. As for asking to have the headphone jack removed, I did indeed not ask for that, but since I have been using bluetooth headphones for years I did not miss the jack when it went and I have found many uses for high resolution cameras. Also I have not tied myself to mobile subscription to get a cheap phone for over 15 years. I have had glass screen phones since they arrived on the market and so far a rubber edge buffer and a screen protection foil, or these days a product called PanzerGlass, has resulted in me not having broken a single mobile phone screen... ever. If you are dumb enough to buy an insanely expensive phone and then carrying it around with out a cheap rubber buffer and a screen protector it's your own damn fault when you drop your precious and the glass breaks.

          • by Anonymous Coward

            Speak for yourself.

            I wanted a retina display.

            I wanted the headphone jack removed, I didn't use it and it was wasting space.

            I have zero desire for the battery to be replaceable for the tradeoffs that represents.

            10mp and 4k recording are a huge bonus, I uses these features constantly.

        • That's a bit of an exaggeration

          Who is asking for a phone with no headphone jack again? Nobody I know.

          • That's a bit of an exaggeration

            Who is asking for a phone with no headphone jack again? Nobody I know.

            You sound very bitter there, but speak for your self, you must not have many friends. I know quite a few people who either use bluetooth headphones or are aware of the existence of adapters and therefore won't equate the demise of the headphone jack with he loss of a limb.

      • by Kohath ( 38547 )

        What’s wrong with a bigger, better looking screen and longer battery life in roughly the same form factor? Which consumers didn’t want those things?

        • What’s wrong with a bigger, better looking screen and longer battery life in roughly the same form factor? Which consumers didn’t want those things?

          Uh, that "same" form factor now costs you over three times what it used to. Think that's also what consumers wanted? Mediocre upgrades in exchange for an obscene price tag?

          Sadly, people don't even remember the fact that new iPhones used to be heavily discounted at $199 when you signed up for a 2-year agreement.

          Now you have a bend-over-and-take-it cost model where you pay the full MSRP for the hardware before you even think about service for it.

          • by Kohath ( 38547 )

            If you don’t want to pay for improvements, then don’t. Your price tag concerns don’t make screen sizes smaller or batteries drain faster.

            Spoiler alert: the luxury high end phone model with all the newest improvements costs more than the regular model from 5 years ago. Also, water is wet. Perhaps you have a complaint about that too?

          • Sadly, people don't even remember the fact that new iPhones used to be heavily discounted at $199 when you signed up for a 2-year agreement.

            That's not a discount, that's a payment plan. If you are paying the same monthly bill, you may need to shop around.

            • Sadly, people don't even remember the fact that new iPhones used to be heavily discounted at $199 when you signed up for a 2-year agreement.

              That's not a discount, that's a payment plan. If you are paying the same monthly bill, you may need to shop around.

              Wrong. It was an actual discount off the MSRP,, if you agreed to a 2-year contract for phone service. For some fucking reason, we've gotten completely away from any discounts in the last few releases of iPhones, and customers are NOW forced to pay the FULL MSRP on a (you guessed it) payment plan. Hell, cell providers are still charging the full $500+ MSRP to buy an iPhone 6S, a model that was released over 2 years ago.

              And no, most people are not paying the same monthly bill when compared to five years a

    • And a related 3:

      Please make the phone a little thicker, a little tougher and drop the edge to edge screen. I'd rather have a medium sized phone I can use as-is than a tiny thin phone I have to make huge with a fugly case because it's so fragile.

    • Dear Apple, Google, and Samsung,

      There are only two hardware features I'm looking for in a phone:

      1. No more than 4" tall HD screen (at least 1920x1080).
      2. Removable 6000 mAh battery (hint: make the damn phone thicker).

      The first one to make a phone with both features (* with the "latest version of the OS") gets my business.

      It's not so much a matter of "Thicker", but rather HEAVIER. You are talking about a battery that would be more than twice as heavy as the ones currently in the iPhone X, for example. You'd think that doesn't matter; but it does. When you hold the phone for any appreciable length of time, the extra grams start to quickly translate into hand-cramps and feelings of "I just want to put this thing DOWN!"

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Why does the OP suggest that the price is too low for a bigger iPhone? It is cheaper to make a larger phone than a small one and a smaller phone is more desirable than a larger one...

  • It sure would be nice if we saw something new from Apple besides just cell phones. I know that they make them a lot of money. I also know that they have teams of people dedicated to the design of their desktop and laptop computers. Or they did at one time. What have they been doing? I'll be looking for a new computer soon and I'd like to see something from Apple that's not just a slight variation on what they had before.

    I don't mean anything "big and bold" as a change, just put the high resolution screens on all their devices, wider adoption of ThunderBolt 3, just something newer. I'm not even sure what I want, just not the same thing for the last six years might help.

    They got great phones. The tablets look good too. Even the iPods don't seem half bad. The laptops and desktops just don't seem all that great any more. That iMac Pro might be nice, if someone could actually buy one.

    Time to catch up Apple. You should not have fallen behind in the first place.

    • I'd be happy if they could pressure Intel into sticking an LPDDR4 controller on their existing cores if (as rumoured) the ones that were scheduled to have LPDDR4 controllers are delayed by another year. My work laptop is a late 2013 MBP and our budget assumes upgrades every three years. There's money in the budget for me to get a new one, but the main performance limit for me is RAM, so I'm not upgrading until I can get 32GB (and, no, a machine that uses 32GB DDR4 at 11-12W instead of LPDDR3 at 1-2W is no
    • Designing desktops doesn't look good on a designer's resume. Designing phones and tablets does. Thus there is no incentive to do good desktops, because they are regarded as passe.
      • Designing desktops doesn't look good on a designer's resume. Designing phones and tablets does.

        If a former Apple designer is struggling to justify their resume, they're doing it wrong.

        Thus there is no incentive to do good desktops, because they are regarded as passe.

        Desktops are about as passe as 400HP V8 engines in Detroit, and for similar reasons. When users need real performance, a fucking tablet ain't gonna cut it. And Corporate America still uses the shit out of them.

    • by Kohath ( 38547 )

      The AirPods wireless earbuds are new and they’re really good.
      They announced a new Mac Pro desktop that looks like an improvement.

      Maybe they’ll lhave wireless charging on MacBooks next year.
      And people think Apple is behind the new Intel chip with integrated AMD graphics. That should be a genuine improvement.

  • by berj ( 754323 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @04:16AM (#55545843)

    What I really want is continued updates of the SE line. I don't care much for the latest hardware in a phone. A yearly update to the SE line with the previous (or even two previous) year's SoC and specs would be fine by me.

    I've got a 2 year old SE on iOS 11 right now and it's wonderful. The perfect phone for me. I had a 6 once upon a time but I didn't like the larger screen.

    Hopefully they keep going with the 4" form factor.

    • Re:iPhone SE (Score:5, Interesting)

      by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @07:01AM (#55546213) Homepage
      I agree. I still think that the iPhone SE is the "right size" for a cell phone. It also has a better design, from before Apple decided it needed round edges to everything or that camera bumps were acceptable. I wouldn't mind an updated design, maybe with less bezel and more screen, but I wish Apple would stop making their products worse.
      • by berj ( 754323 )

        I don't really have any complaints about any of the newer ( > 6) designs. It's all about the size of the screen for me. If I can't use it one handed then I'm not much interested. The rounded edges and camera bump don't bother me at all. The one complaint I had about the 6 I had was that the finish seemed slipperier than the 5s/SE finish. Not sure if that's the rounded corners or the choice in aluminum finish, though.

        The move to glass backs doesn't bother me much either but I gather that the whole re

        • If I can't use it one handed then I'm not much interested.

          Yeah, I'm with you. To me, that is one of the big advantages to the SE. I can comfortably reach the entire screen, no problem. With the iPhone 6-8, I can reach a good portion of the screen comfortably and it's ok, but a bit annoying. The iPhone Plus models, forget about it. I need two hands to operate them.

          And I'm not saying that the rounded edges and camera bump are a deal-breaker. I just think that, overall, Apple's design sensibility got worse between the iPhone 5 and 6. The increased size, camer

    • Just because my needs are for a small screen phone I don't want to be punished by having last years technology in my new phone. It's bad enough that they don't include all of the features in the SE so that it doesn't take sales from the larger phones. I just want a phone that I can use with one hand when I'm standing on the bus or walking home with groceries. I have my iPad if I want the larger screen to do a lot of reading. It's my media consumption device. The phone is for keeping me in touch when I'm out

      • by berj ( 754323 )

        Just because my needs are for a small screen phone I don't want to be punished by having last years technology in my new phone

        Oh I don't disagree with you at all.

        But sadly the phone market for flagship phones seems to have left the 4" form factor behind. So if it's a choice between getting the latest tech but no 4" screen or a slightly less functional phone with the 4" screen then I would choose the latter every day of the week.

  • On the other hand, next year they could release the same designs as they have this year, but with small incremental improvements to some of the components. They could release a new version of the operating system too.

    Oh! Maybe they could prefix these with a letter to show that they are slightly different. How about a "S"? So we'd have the iPhone 8S, iPhone 8S+ and the iPhone XS.

    Blogs and websites that live and breath phones would complain about the minimal differences between the 8 and 8S and the X and XS -

  • by MrKaos ( 858439 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @06:05AM (#55546045) Journal

    Bleeds you of cash to get it and then you need a new one.

  • wants to upgrade to the Iphone X. He's using an Iphone 7 right now, and has had it for less than a year.

    His reasoning? He believes that Apple intentionally causes older phones to run slower when new phones are released. I asked him why he doesn't switch away from Apple products then if he believes they're using such business tactics, and his response is that he didn't want to have to repurchase his library of movies and music he has on Itunes.

    This is your average consumer.

  • Apple has already succeeded in proving that people are willing to pay a premium for their phones. As such, higher prices across the board are a reasonable expectation -- but I don't expect Apple to push them quite as high on their "low end" model as The Verge is speculating. Rather, I think that the LCD model is going to be initially positioned as a direct replacement for the iPhone 8 Plus, and thus, will be priced accordingly: $799.

    Further, I think it will be a short-lived product, with maybe one or two

  • They haven't yet released one full-screen phone. Unless you are cool calling a full screen one that has a big rectangular chunk pulled out of the top...
  • It will take a lot of courage to keep the notch.

    • by Dr.Who ( 146770 )
      And even more courage to release a new phone with a headphone / microphone jack.
      I have an iPhone 5 that had the battery replaced under warranty a year ago. When I took it out of the OtterBox Defender case at the Apple store, it was pristine except for some rub-marks from dust that worked in between the case and the phone.
      The iPhone 5 meets my needs for now. If it were to fail, I would NOT purchase a phone that had no headphone / microphone jack. That does not leave many options in the iPhone lineup.

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