More predictions about iPhones that will come out later in 2018 have been published by KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Kuo"s predictions are often shared by many as he is considered somewhat of an industry insider and expert. His latest report has reiterated previous predictions that he made on this year"s upcoming iPhones. The overall picture and specs of what he sees coming can be seen in the following chart.
Some of the things that were reiterated in this latest report were, firstly, that all of the new phones will have no home button at all and will include the, sometimes criticized, notch for TrueDepth sensors. With the home button gone, this essentially signals the end of the era of the design that Apple kept throughout all the models of the iPhone from the first one back in 2007 till the iPhone 8 released in 2017.
Secondly, Kuo"s latest notes reiterate that the new phones will have 3D sensing for Face ID and Animojis. Additionally the 6.1 inch phone will have a rectangular shaped one-cell battery, this will be 8.5% larger than the battery in the current iPhone X. What is perhaps the most exciting for a number of people is that the phones are predicted to have a lower starting price between $700 and $800, for the U.S. market at least.
The new phones have not been given official titles yet, but the largest of the three; the 6.5 inch, is being dubbed as the iPhone X Plus by some. It will apparently have 25% more battery than the iPhone X released last year. Additionally, both the iPhone X Plus and the 5.6-inch model will have 4GB of RAM, more than the 2017 iPhone X which only has 3GB.
The speculation is that the 6.1 inch phone will essentially be a scaled down iPhone X. However, its screen will not be an OLED, but rather an LCD. Additionally, this phone will also not have a stainless steel frame, but rather an aluminum one; it will not have 3D Touch, it will only have a single lens camera at the rear; and it will only have 3GB of RAM, which is less than any of the other upcoming iPhones. These changes will help bring costs down, leading to a lower price tag.
The new details from Kuo largely focus on the distribution and manufacturing of the new 6.1-inch phone across Pegatron, Foxconn and Wistron assemblers, adding that Japan Display will supply the majority (70%) of LCD panels for the phone and that apparently it will use the company"s six-inch Full Active LCDs that only need a 0.5mm bezel on the edges.
As is often the case, more details about these upcoming iPhones will be released as the date of their launch approaches. Kuo will also undoubtedly hand out more notes and predictions, if all of this is valid, Apple seems to be sticking to the three phones per launch format that it went with last year.
Source: MacRumors|Images from KGI Research via MacRumors