14 DAY TRIAL // Apple is expected to completely overhaul the iPhone lineup next year when it celebrates the 10th anniversary of the device, and now a new report claims that the company wants to do this with a model that would feature a display of 5 inches.
Japanese site Macotakara, which has a good track on information on unreleased iPhones, claims that a Taiwanese supplier revealed Apple was planning on launching a 5-inch model featuring a vertical dual-camera system, as compared to the horizontal one that’s available right now on the iPhone 7 Plus.
No other changes would be made on this model, the source claims, and all the other specifications would be identical to the rest of the iPhones, which means that Apple’s main purpose is just to offer a new size with the vertical dual-camera system.
Why a 5-inch iPhone?
The big question is why would the company plan on doing that? First and foremost, the vertical design could be adopted because of the 5-inch screen, as Apple could have more space under the hood horizontally than vertically. This feature is exclusive to the iPhone 7 Plus right now, so if Apple brings it on a smaller iPhone, it might have to rethink the internal structure in order to fit in the camera module.
More recently, there were rumors claiming that Apple was planning a third iPhone size that would come with a 5.7- or 5.8-inch display featuring OLED technology, so there are big chances that the company is internally considering several prototypes and this is how all these rumors reach the web.
As for an iPhone with a 5-inch display, Apple might be trying to provide potential customers with a choice between the existing 4.7- and 5.5-inch options. At this point, Apple doesn’t have such an option and many 5-inch phone buyers are more tempted to go for Android, where the range of phones includes several models with this size.
We’ll find out how much of this new report is true in the fall of next year, as the 2017 iPhone should launch in September as per Apple’s typical release cycle.