If you trust analysts, the iPhone 5S will come in multiple colors and two display sizes

iPhone 5S colors (teaser 001)

We’re just two days into 2013, but there’s no hiding from the next wave of Apple rumors. Yesterday brought as a non-news of an unknown developer spotting traces of iOS 7 and the next iPhone in logs – as if Apple hasn’t been working on the iPhone 5S/6 and iOS 7 since before iOS 6 was released.

Wednesday morning, an analyst boldly predicted that the iPhone 5S, a specs bump, will launch by June with multiple color options and – wait ’till you hear this – two different display sizes. I should have been an analyst!

BGR relays a report by Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White who thinks “tax-related selling” is to blame for the recent downward bias in the stock price. He expects a negative news cycle around Apple to be broken as we enter 2013.

Then this:

We believe there is still plenty to look forward to at Apple, including the potential for greater choices (i.e., colors, sizes) around the next iPhone in 2013, combined with accelerating momentum with the iPad mini and continued strength with the iPad franchise at large.

His checks indicate that the next iPhone will be all about more choices:

This entails an expansion in both the color patterns and screen sizes with the next iPhone (i.e., likely called the iPhone 5S) that we currently believe will be launched in May/June with certain supply production starting in March/April.

The June launch guesstimate corroborates his peer Peter Misek’s expectation of the next iPhone around June. Misek thinks the phone will sport NFC, a 4.8-inch Retina + IGZO screen, a new A7 quad-core processor variant and “a new form factor with no home button” with full gesture control “possibly included” as well.

As for Brian White, there’s more where he came from:

Our checks are also indicating that the next iPhone will offer customers more choice in terms of screen size Although Apple offers a 4-inch screen on the iPhone 5 and a 3.5-inch screen on the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4, the Company has never offered multiple screen sizes for a single model.

We believe this is about to change with the next iPhone offering different screen sizes that we believe will allow Apple to better bifurcate the market and expand its reach.

They believe…

Based on what?

Anyway, it’s open season on Apple rumors so I guess anything goes, but this is too much to handle, if you ask me.

I am not ruling out the possibility of color choices.

The iPod music player, for example, originally launched only in snow white and now we have iPods in a bunch of colors. People like to personalize their devices with colors and colors add a sense of consumer choice.

Two screen sizes?

I don’t buy this.

But then again, it’s 2013 and this is Tim Cook’s Apple so we could be in for a few surprise changes in Apple’s market strategy. For example, in 2012 Apple abandoned its annual refresh cycle with the iPad 4, which launched just six months following the iPad 3’s debut in March 2012. It also launched the iPhone 5 in September, breaking away from its usual mid-year refresh cycle.

At any rate, Samsung has put some pressure on Apple by carpet-bombing the market with multiple form-factor smartphones. With the iPhone 5, Apple for the first time relented and gave it a taller four-inch screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1Rc4MDmr8o

However, some (or many?) people arguably want an even larger iPhone.

Providing the next iPhone in two flavors – one with the four-inch display (the new gold standard for iPhones) and the other with a jumbo-sized display – could appeal to both camps, and that could be a good thing.

This would, however, inevitably fragment the platform a bit more because the larger iPhone would introduce a new screen resolution. If that’s in fact in the cards, it’s fairly safe to assume that the jumbo-sized iPhone will have a full HD screen at 1,920-by-1,080 pixels and 16:9 ratio.

What’s your read of this rumor?

Top image via Anostyle.com.