Even without Apple being at the gigantic Consumer Electronics Show
last week in Las Vegas, it proved to be a treasure trove of iPhone 6
revelations for those with the wit to look beneath the surface of
things.
Things like IGZO screens. And Gorilla Glass 3.
Also this week: The sky darkened under the crisscrossing trajectories
of contradictory speculation: The Next iPhone would be smaller and
cheaper; and bigger and cheaper; and bigger and more expensive. Or
something.
iPhone 6 feature revealed by Sharp at CES
And they didn’t even realise it! Not so sharp, after all, apparently.
GottaBeMobile’s Adam Mills found Sharp’s booth, at the Consumer
Electronics Show (CES), where the company was proudly showing its IGZO
display technology. (You can check out GottaBeMobile’s video, which
shows a prototype tablet sporting the prototype display.)
“Sharp not only showed off flexible displays like Samsung, but maybe
more importantly, the company showed off its IGZO display technology,
the same technology that has been rumored to be coming with the next
iPhone model, presumably called the iPhone 5S or the iPhone 6,”Mill announced,
just in case you weren’t au courant with the IGZO rumours, which are
almost as tediously repetitive as the rumours that Apple’s next
iWhatever will have a fabulous Liquidmetal body.
IGZO displays can be brighter, higher-than-1080p resolution, and much
more power efficient than conventional displays, according to Sharp,
which with several other display vendors is a major supplier to Apple.
In a few sentences, possibly using copy/paste or a macro, Mills
deftly summed up months of rumours about the next iPhone. And then he
ruined it all at the end.
“Keep in mind, Apple rumors often don’t pan out so it’s possible that
Apple will go in a different direction with the new iPad and the new
iPhone in 2013,” he wrote.
No one has yet connected the dots between another CES reveal and the Next iPhone: TrackingPoint’s Precision Guided Firearm (PCWorld has details),
which marries a high-tech digital scope and sensors with a custom-built
Surgeon Rifles bolt-action long rifle. Among other things, the PGF uses
Wi-Fi to display its high-tech in-scope image and data on its accessory iPad mini.
Using the Next iPhone and a new software protocol, iShoot, to remotely
control the rifle, upload photos and video to iCloud, and automatically
sync calendars with your local butcher is an obvious next step.
iPhone 6 will have triple strength Gorilla Glass
If only we could have CES once a month instead of once a year.
Jonathan Leggett, of USwitch.com, was hanging around in Vegas, too, and took note of
Corning’s announcement that a “new strain of Gorilla Glass purported to
be three times tougher than the version currently in service on
top-end smartphones, paving the way for a new generation of more robust
handsets.”
And one Very Special New Generation Handset in particular.
According to a March 2012 post by
9to5Mac’s Seth Weintraub, Apple and Corning’s relationship has been
“shrouded in mystery.” The glassmaker was never mentioned in Apple
marketing material and “even isn’t included in Apple’s supplier lists,”
he wrote. But on March 2, 2012, “Apple released its US Jobs report which
included the following info: ‘Corning employees in Kentucky and New
York who create the majority of the glass for iPhone…,’” Weintraub
noted.
“Debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show this week, Gorilla Glass 3
has been conditioned to be less brittle than ever before thanks to an
ion-bonding treatment and some clever atomic jiggery-pokery that we’re
not even going to pretend to understand,” Leggett wrote, with disarming
humility. (But the neat British-ism “jiggery-pokery” usually suggests
trickery or underhandedness rather than manipulation.)
With somewhat less humility, Leggett didn’t hesitate to draw the obvious conclusion.
“With rumours indicating that Samsung could opt for a plastic screen
for its next kit – possibly even a flexible one – we think [GG3 is] most
likely to debut on the sixth-gen iPhone,” he declared. “Especially
given that Gorilla Glass has featured in every iPhone since the iPhone 4
dropped back in 2010.”
iPhone 6 will be a higher-end iPhone
Without a trace of irony, a BGR post this week says that a “new report adds weight to recent rumors” that Apple will launch more than one iPhone model by mid-2013.
The “report” is that treasure trove of firsthand, in-depth knowledge
called the Note to Investors, this one by stock analyst T. Michael
Walkley, of Canaccord Genuity. In the note, Walkley “sees,” according to
BGR’s Zach Epstein, “Apple launching a new ‘higher-end iPhone’ sometime
in the June quarter, and a low-end model could be in the works as
well.”
Whoa. Not just a cheaper iPhone 6-or-whatever but also a more expensive one!
According to BGR, Walkley wrote, “We believe Apple could launch a
higher-end iPhone model by the June quarter versus its more typical
September/October timing for a new iPhone launch. We also believe Apple
could potentially launch a lower-end iPhone focused on more
price-sensitive pre-paid markets, as we believe consumers in markets
such as China, Latin America and Eastern Europe would have very strong
demand for a more affordably priced 3G iPhone.”
Walkley clearly is willing to take the Rumour Games to the next
level, since among the most fecund of recent rumours has been the one
insisting that Apple must, must introduce a less expensive version of
the iPhone, or face Collapse, Failure, Utter Destruction, and the End of
the World.
Probably the more expensive Next iPhone will have a much larger
screen, in super high-def with IGZO, a quad-core processor, bigger
battery, a kaleidoscope of colours, and Gorilla Glass 3 if not 4. Oh
yes: and NFC contactless payments.
iPhone 6 shows radical redesign: It looks just like the iPod nano
For a long time, we have boycotted any mention of “concept art,”
a.k.a. “fan art,” that purports to show what the Next iPhone will look
like, based on current rumours, febrile imagings, or certain organic
chemical agents. Or some combination thereof.
But when Macworld‘s Ashleigh Allsopp headlines her post, “Is this what Apple’s iPhone 6 will look like?” we’ll make an exception.
Although she doesn’t answer the headline’s question, we will boldly go where so far no one apparently has and say, “Uh, no.”
“New images of a potential iPhone 6 design have been created based on
an alleged test prototype, sporting a similar shape to the latest iPod
nano,” Allsopp reveals.
The renderings are the latest by a talented Italian designer, Federico Ciccarese, with the Twitter handle @ciccaresedesign, a website where he posts these illustrations, and an acknowledged need for some work assignments.
Ciccarese mentions something about his newest creations being based
on some iPhone test prototype, but in practice it looks like he just
“grew” the iPod nano into the Next iPhone. And added something called
“iOSX,” a hybrid blend of iOS and OS X. And this is what he comes up with.
Here is his previous rendering of the expected iPhone 5, and you can judge for yourself how closely that resembled the final product.
iPhone 6 will be cheaper than iPhone 5 … but it will also be bigger
This is getting confusing, even by the standards of iOSphere
rumouring: smaller and cheaper; bigger and more expensive; bigger but
cheaper; more expensive but smaller. All of the above.
A characteristically brief and anonymously sourced story at International Business Times repeated
the rumour that “according to supply-chain sources,” Apple will
introduce a low-cost version of iPhone for China and similar markets, in
the latter half of 2013. So far, so yawn.
But there was this little iOSphere twist: “Some sources claimed that
they have seen the sample of the low-cost iPhone, which will come with a
larger display …” So the intensely rumoured “iPhone mini” moniker
refers to the phone’s price, not its dimension.
The reasons for the cheaper but bigger iPhone 6? “Growing sales of
the iPad mini … may have served as an impetus for Apple to roll out a
low-cost iPhone …” And “Qualcomm’s recent launch of its latest family of
Snapdragon chipsets … for the entry-level to mid-range smartphones may
pave the way for Apple bringing out the low-cost iPhone …”
The latter reason is a bit odd, verging on a technical non sequitur.
Because Qualcomm offers the ARM-based Snapdragon as a mobile system on a
chip, with the processor integrated with a bunch of other components.
With the iPhone 5′s A6 chip, Apple apparently has for the first time
custom-designed its own ARM-based main processor, manufactured by
Samsung. Apple does use Qualcomm’s mobile data modem chipsets, but not
the Snapdragon.
“You’d think if Apple wanted to make a low-cost iPhone, it would be small,” wrote Dave Smith,
at International Business Times, after reading the DigiTimes account of
unsupported anonymous speculation. “An ‘iPhone nano,’ if you will.”
(Smith must have been watching Frederico’s design blog!)
You would think that. But you would be wrong. Apple is, after all, magical.
“If DigiTimes’ sources are correct, Apple’s “low-cost iPhone” could
easily look like a Galaxy S3 smartphone, and given its ‘low cost,’ it
might even compete with Samsung’s prices, too,” Smith concluded.
So if DigiTimes’ sources are correct, Apple is going to imitate the Galaxy S III and voluntarily start a price war with Samsung.
DigiTimes and various stock analysts agree, according to Smith:
“Apple wants to sell a lower-priced iPhone. Whether the ‘iPhone 6′ will
be bigger or smaller has yet to be determined; Apple simply wants it to
be cheaper.” Clearly. “The obvious explanation: A cheaper iPhone —
easily the company’s most popular product — would help Apple penetrate
some key markets, particularly those Eastern, lower-income areas like
China and India.”
We can hear Apple CEO Tim Cook now, the new Colossus gazing
to the East and crying out, “Give me your tired, your poor, your
lower-income huddled masses yearning to buy an Apple iPhone, the
wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the phoneless,
tempest-tost to me, I lift my cheaper iPhone 6 beside the golden door.”
