Oliver Haslam on April 28, 2018, 7:23 am

KGI: Apple May Ditch 3D Touch In iPhone Models This Year To Cut Costs

3D Touch may be a polarizing technology with some swearing by it and others genuinely forgetting that it exists, but the thought of Apple ditching it altogether is something that may not have cropped up for most people.

Now KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, though, with the often reliable Apple watcher following up claims from January that a new 6.1-inch iPhone will be a cross between an iPhone X and an iPhone 8 later this year with the possibility that it may not ship with 3D Touch at all.

According to Chinese website Feng, who has seen a research note by Ming-Chi Kuo, the new 6.1-inch iPhone will ship with an all-new display. That display will supposedly see costs increase by between $23 and $26, with Apple set to offset that extra cost by cutting corners elsewhere. 3D Touch, claims the report, is where money will be saved.

That new display will apparently include something called Cover Glass Sensor technology, which will allow Apple’s new screen to be lighter and importantly, more impact resistant than what is used today.

The memo also notes that the iPhone’s touch module will be moved from the display panel to the glass surface, with a “thin-film sensor” also included. It’s unknown just now what that last one actually is, or what benefits it may bring, however.

What we do know, at least thanks to the memo, is that while that new display technology will not just be part of that 6.1-inch iPhone this year, all iPhones released in 2019 will come with it built in.

That could mean we will see the end of 3D Touch on iPhones, something that was unimaginable not too long ago.

(Source: Feng [Google Translate])