The new iPhone 6 is expected to come in two
sizes, one that will have a 4.7-inch screen, and another with a larger
5.5-inch version.Credit
When the iPhone
first came out in 2007, it looked like a giant among mobile phones.
This fancy new slate-like phone weighed in at 4.8 ounces and had a
3.5-inch diagonal screen.
Yet now, the iPhone 5 — which is even bigger than its predecessors with a 4-inch diagonal screen — seems tiny compared to most Google Android and Windows smartphones. (Let’s not even compare it to phablets. That would just be mean.)
But look no further than the Apple rumor-mill to see that the quest for bigger is about to give the iPhone 6 a much-needed face — um — stretch.
There have been
reports coming from all over the globe and blogosphere that Apple is
expected to release two new iPhones this year, one that will have a
4.7-inch screen, and another version with an even larger 5.5-inch one.
Pictures of “dummy”
iPhones, which are usually just mockups of the size and shape of the
device, have been seen from all corners of the Internet. Some have shown
up with a gray body. Others show a black and white casing with gold accents — you know, for the bling.
The most recent image comes from the Australian Apple accessories site and blog MacFixIt. While the size and shape look the same, the body — which is green — is clearly a prototype.
“We have just received
from our contact in China a photo of what seems to be the back of an
iPhone 6,” MacFixIt wrote on its site. “We believe the picture to be
genuine as we have received leaked product pics in the past that have
also proven to be legitimate after official Apple product launches.” The
site added that the rumors of a 4.7-inch iPhone fit “the proportions of
this photo.”
If the images prove to be true, the iPhone 6 will be slim and have a slightly curved back along the edges. For those into the nerdy, nitty-gritty details,
the phone is expected to have an A8 chip, which will include both a
quad-core 64-bit processor and quad-core graphics, an 8-megapixel camera
sensor and operate on Apple’s yet-to-be announced iOS 8.
So do customers want a bigger, flatter iPhone? Earlier this month when I wrote about
the HTC One, I noted that while I loved the idea of a larger phone, I
couldn’t bring myself to switch to Google Android, which still feels
clunky to me.
Some readers agreed with me. ”I’m old and would love a larger screen,” wrote Alan Burnham in the comments.
“My iPhone 5s felt too
small, and I was glad to let it go,” said another reader who had
recently jumped to a larger Windows phone.
But others disagreed,
seeming quite happy with the size of Apple’s current offerings. “Like
another (female) reader, I want to keep my phone in the most convenient
‘phone holster’ imaginable: my bra,” wrote a woman from New England.
“The 5s iPhone is already sufficiently larger than my former early
iPhone that it is making that practice less comfortable than it used to
be.”
