Hedging its bets, Apple has apparently commissioned a third contract manufacturer to build iPhone 8 alongside established suppliers and longtime partners Foxconn and Pegatron. According to a Chinese-language report in the Economic Daily News newspaper, quoted by Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes, Apple supplier Wistron will get to build some of the future iPhone units.
Barclays Research analysts think Apple might offer iPhone 8 in two screen sizes, one measuring five inches diagonally and the other 5.8 inches. DigiTimes claimed in March that Apple had picked Samsung Display as the main supplier of 5.8-inch AMOLEDs.
In a follow-up report Thursday, DigiTimes reiterated that Samsung Display will be Apple's exclusive supplier of 5.8-inch AMOLED display panels for iPhone 8.
All iPhone 8 models will feature curved OLED displays, reports The Korea Herald. Citing sources familiar with the plans, the outlet says Apple has placed large orders with Samsung Display for plastic (not glass) OLED panels—similar to those used on the Galaxy S7 Edge—to use in its next handset.
Samsung's next-generation Galaxy smartphone appears to be poised to beat Apple's upcoming iPhone 8 to the punch now that Bloomberg has corroborated much of SamMobile's report saying the Galaxy S8 will be a bezel-free device with a wraparound display featuring an in-screen Home button. The phone should be unveiled in February 2018 and launch in March.
That way, the Samsung device should enjoy a six-month lead over the iPhone 8's expected fall arrival. However, the Korean giant is considering scrapping plans for a dual-camera on the Galaxy S8 due to “higher manufacturing costs”, one of the sources told the news gathering organization.
SamMobile is reporting today that Samsung's next-generation Galaxy S8 smartphone will replace the physical Home button with a non-moving variant embedded right behind its AMOLED screen. The firm is also said to adopt USB-C for charging and data transfer and ditch the 3.5mm headphone jack to make the phone thinner and lighter.
The Galaxy S8 should be unveiled in February 2017 and could beat Apple's rumored iPhone 8 to the virtual Home button.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo issued a note to clients this morning, a copy of which was obtained by MacRumors, predicting record 150 million iPhone sales in the second half of 2017. A 4.7-inch iPhone 8 with an LCD screen and glass casing should feature wireless charging, he wrote.
“Unprecedented replacement demand” will, of course, be led by a rumored high-end iPhone 8 model with brand new industrial design, power-saving OLED display technology and other “notably superior specifications” from the “less exciting” 4.7 and 5.5-inch LCD iPhones.
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Apple has as many as ten different iPhone 8 prototypes under development, including a higher-priced model with an advanced display based on power-saving organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology that multiple industry sources, analysts and supply chain makers have been talking about for months now.
Asian suppliers have been asked to increase output of thinner OLED displays and submit prototype screens “with better resolution than ones from Samsung” to Apple.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is on a roll this morning with a litany of reports pertaining to Apple's next-generation 2017 iPhone refresh. According to another note issued to clients this morning, a copy of which was obtained by AppleInsider, Kuo says he expects the Cupertino firm to slash prices of both 4.7 and 5.5-inch iPhone models next year.
That's because those iPhones are expected to continue using legacy LCD technology. By lowering prices for those models, Apple might potentially regain some of the market share lost to more affordable Android handsets.
In another note issued to clients this morning, a copy of which was obtained by AppleInsider, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says he expects a next-generation iPhone to hit mass production late in the third quarter of next year. The widely rumored premium OLED iPhone model should account for a little more than half of new model shipments, or about fifty to 55 percent.
A 4.7-inch variant of next year's iPhone is projected to account for 30 to 35 percent of orders while its 5.5-inch brethren is expected to account for ten to fifteen percent of iPhone shipments next year.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has said many times over the past few months that Apple's Tenth Anniversary iPhone due next year will move from the current unibody aluminum industrial design to an all-glass front and back plate sandwiched between a stainless steel frame.
In a new note to clients, a copy of which was obtained by MacRumors, Kuo explains that the reason why so-called 'iPhone 8' will switch from metal to glass for its casing is to support advanced wireless charging technologies.
For all the talk of Apple's rumored switch to the superior, power-sipping organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display technology for next year's iPhones, it's increasingly looking like OLED screens will be limited to a single model.
That's because panel manufacturers are currently struggling to meet Apple's expectedly large order volume and stringent quality requirements. That OLED screens are far more difficult to produce than LCDs isn't helping either.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and Jungah Lee said today that four main OLED panel suppliers—Samsung Display, LG Display, Sharp and Japan Display—are currently suffering from yield issues, with constraints potentially continuing into 2018.
Apple's single-lens iPhone 7 and dual-lens iPhone 7 Plus both support the optical image stabilization (OIS) feature for taking sharper images and capturing stabilized videos. Next year's dual-lens iPhone models, according to KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, will support OIS on both the the wide-angle lens and the telephoto lens. The iPhone 7 Plus supports auto focus on both cameras on the back, but only the wide-angle lens is outfitted with OIS.