The iPhone 12 lineup hasn’t been out all that long (at least not completely), but analysts are already looking ahead to the iPhone 13. And according to a few at Barclays, Apple may make a significant upgrade to Wi-Fi in its upcoming iPhones.
The latest from Barclays analysts Thomas O’Malley, Blayne Curtis, Tim Long, and their associates was first detailed today by MacRumors. Their report indicates that Apple is going to adopt a “game-changing” upgrade for Wi-Fi, adding support for Wi-Fi 6E in the iPhone 13 lineup. The analysts were able to come to these conclusions based on conversations they had with multiple Apple suppliers.
The analysts believe that chipmaker Skyworks may be tapped by Apple to help out with the adoption of Wi-Fi 6E. This upgrade to Wi-Fi will bring faster data rates, lower latency, and more. And for the devices that support Wi-Fi 6E, it means more bandwidth and less interference. This is due in part to extending into the 6 GHz band.
Basically, a real upgrade to the Wi-Fi experience for future iPhones if this actually pans out.
The 6 GHz band will perhaps be the most disruptive boon for Wi-Fi users in the last 20 years,” said Vijay Nagarajan, an executive at chipmaker Broadcom, in January. “This swath of spectrum, when coupled with Wi-Fi, will power new consumer experiences on smartphones, AR/VR devices and wearables we haven’t even yet invented.
The iPhone 11 and the iPhone 12 both support Wi-Fi 6 right out of the box, but this isn’t the 6 GHz band version. That would require the upgrade to Wi-Fi 6E, which may happen next year.
What about the larger iPhone SE?
There have been rumors that Apple may launch a “larger” iPhone SE variant at some point in the future. Before Apple got around to announcing the new iPhone SE, those rumors suggested the “iPhone 9 Plus” would see the light of day sometime in 2020. That ultimately did not turn out to be the case, and some rumors had suggested the device could launch in early 2021.
However, the latest from these analysts suggests that Apple may not launch the newer, larger iPhone SE variant in early 2021 after all. Interestingly, the analysts say the larger iPhone SE model was not mentioned at all during the talks with Apple suppliers, which could indicate Apple is not moving forward with launching the device anytime soon.
That could line up with a report from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo which suggested the larger iPhone SE would launch sometime in late 2021.