Spring is here, and the analysts are out in force with all kinds of predictions and estimations pertaining to Apple’s upcoming major products. According to a series of previous reports, Apple’s one-per-year iPhone release cycle could be finally breached in 2013, with many reckoning the Cupertino company to be readying two separate devices. This sentiment has been echoed today by Topeka Capital’s Brian White, who believes the device will retail in "at least" two different screen sizes, in a move said to help counteract the vast range of choice offered by Android-powered handsets.
If true, it would be a big change of direction for a company that, up until last September’s release of the iPhone 5, had stuck religiously to the 3.5-inch LCD. The only noteworthy change prior to that point had been to up the resolution to suit the company’s subjective ‘Retina’ standard, and while that was impressive, it doesn’t cater to those gazing longingly at the plentiful supply 5-inch handsets on its rival platform.
White cast his aspersions after meeting with his "tech-supply chain company," and goes on to suggest there could be as many as three different screen sizes on offer, which would really be a turn up for the books.
The larger screen of the iPhone 5, coupled with the release of the iPad with a smaller display, suggests we’re looking at an Apple outfit unafraid to break its usually conservative views on radical change. Two years ago, the thought of an iPad mini seemed as unlikely as this suggestion of three different iPhones, but in all honesty, Apple has very little to lose and everything to gain from applying this strategy.
iPhone fans would certainly have no legitimate grievances, since they’d be getting a better range of choices, although developers would have to bear the brunt of the increased fragmentation.
From what we’ve learned of the "iPhone 5S" so far, it will probably include a reasonably upgraded set of features, with a better camera and bumped up processor seemingly inevitable. Depending on just how large Apple plans to go with the display though, the next iPhone, or should we say iPhones, could be anything but the incremental refresh we’d been anticipating.
(via BusinessInsider)
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