As Barron's reported this morning, Gabelli & Co. analyst Hendi Susanto and Universal Display executive Darice Liu speculated that AMOLED display might be limited to a “specialized edition” of an 'iPhone 8' (also referred to as '2017 iPhone' and 'Tenth Anniversary iPhone') until suppliers are able to meet Apple's needs for a full rollout.
IHS Technologies analyst Kevin Wang writes on Chinese social network Weibo that the iPhone 8, which we believe will release in the fall of 2017, will come outfitted with a dual-curved display similar to that found on Samsung's flagship Galaxy S7 edge, for a virtually bezel-less appearance. He also said just yesterday the next iPhone would replace the entry-level 16GB tier with a more capacious 32GB SKU.
Apple is moving forward with plans to change its iPhone casing from metal to glass next year, says Catcher Technology CEO Allen Horng. Catcher is a Taiwanese metal casing maker and a key player in Apple's current iPhone supply chain.
Following the company's annual shareholder meeting on Thursday, Horng told reporters that Apple hopes the move will help differentiate its handsets. He also dispelled rumors that the change will cause Catcher to lose their iPhone business.
Apple pundit John Gruber who runs the Daring Fireball blog has reportedly learned that the next year's iPhone—which some people think will be marketed as 'iPhone 8' rather than 'iPhone 7s'—may sport an edge-to-edge display that could allow an entirely new form-factor device to have a slightly smaller appearance without sacrificing screen size.
But that's not all: although Gruber did not say this with complete certainty, he's heard “scuttlebutt“ suggesting Apple's somehow managed to integrate Touch ID fingerprint verification, a front-facing camera and other components into the screen itself.
If true, 2017 iPhones should be the most radical departure from the device's design so we may finally live to see the iPhone get rid of its chin and the forehead.
Apple will be launching new iPhones this fall, likely to be marketed as 'iPhone 7' and 'iPhone 7 Plus'.
Should the company stick to its established S-upgrade cycle, and there's no reason to believe it won't, then we should see an 'iPhone 7s' and 'iPhone 7s Plus' in 2017, right? That's what conventional wisdom has taught us, but one analyst's turned that conventional wisdom on its head.
Citing industry sources, Barclays analyst Mark Moskowitz recently wrote a lot of nice things about Apple's 2017 iPhone, which he called a “mega cycle” upgrade that will feature a bunch of significant hardware advances that should help increase Apple's iPhone sales by as much as 10.3 percent.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC), the world's top semiconductor foundry, and ARM holdings plc, a British multinational fabless semiconductor designer, have joined forces to make an upcoming 7-nanometer FinFET process a reality in time for volume production in early-2017.
TSMC currently manufactures the iPhone 6s's A9 chip on its 16-nanometer process, while Samsung-made A9 chips are fabbed on a smaller 14-nanometer process.
The timing of TSMC's seven-nanometer FinFET process suggests it might be used to fabricate Apple-designed 'A11' processors for the iPhone 8 in 2017. By comparison, Intel has said it will produce 10nm node processors in the second half of 2017.