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Our iPhone 6 release date, price, features, specs & new
rumours article is updated on a regular basis, so check back to keep up
with the latest information. Updated on 5th August 2013 with new
information on iOS 7.
Apple is in a slightly strange position at the moment: it doesn't
have the smartphone with the fastest processor or the highest-resolution
screen. In fact, looking at specs alone, the
HTC One,
Sony Xperia Z and
Samsung Galaxy S4 are all giving the smartphone king a run for its money and making people think about the Android platform.
That's not say that Apple has been idle. In fact, it's clearly been
working hard on both new hardware and a new operating system in order to
re-assert itself. From the existing rumours, it would appear as though
the next iPhone will be the
iPhone 5S, an update to the
iPhone 5. Then, we're going to get the iPhone 6, a completely revamped phone.
In this article we're concentrating on the iPhone 6, although it may
turn out that some of these features make it into the iPhone 5S. Apple
may even just dump the iPhone 5S and move straight to the 6 instead.
Regardless of names, if Apple's going to continue to make the most
desirable smartphone it's going to have to pack some serious technology
into its latest handsets.
iPHONE 6 RELEASE DATE
At the start of the year you could pretty much pick any month and say
that's when the iPhone 6 was coming out. Obviously, a lot of rumoured
launch dates have been massively wrong. Trying to pin down a date is
very hard, but there are some pointers that give us more likely dates.
First, if Apple follows its usual release schedule, it means it releases
one generation of phone and the following year, uses the same case and
design, but updates the hardware. If Apple sticks to that, it would mean
that the iPhone 5S would follow the iPhone 5.
So, first we need to work out when the iPhone 5S would launch. Most
of the information we have would point to an autumn launch. Here's why.
First, Tim Cook hinted at an
autumn launch
in a call with investors. "Our teams are hard at work on some amazing
new hardware, software, and services that we can’t wait to introduce
this fall and throughout 2014," Cook said.
Next, we know that
iOS 7 is due for release in autumn, so we'd expect it to come out with the iPhone 5S,
iPad 5 and
iPad Mini 2.
Finally, Apple's CFO, Peter Oppenheimer said that Aplpe would have a
"very busy fall" in a more recent earnings call, but said that he would
give "more detail in October". Judging by all of that, the best guess is
that the iPhone 5S will be released late September or early October,
with the iPhone 6 to follow in 2014.
Apple typically waits for a year before launching a new product, but
many think that we won't have to wait that long after the iPhone 5S for
the iPhone 6. It's rumoured that the iPhone 6 will have a larger
display, so Apple could quite happily continue to sell both phones. In
many ways this would be similar to the Samsung strategy of having the
large Galaxy S4 and the
Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini.
iPHONE 6 SCREEN
Apple has been known for its high quality screens and it's going to
be interesting to see what it can do with the iPhone 6, particularly as
it looks like the iPhone 5S will have the same screen size and
resolution as the iPhone 5.
Big-screen phones are the thing of the moment, with Samsung, Sony and
HTC all opting for large, Full HD screens. Now, Apple's not one to
necessarily follow what everyone else is doing, but given the demand for
such phones, we wouldn't be surprised to see that the iPhone 6 has a
larger display. Of course, the screen would need to be Retina, which
means that you can't see the individual pixels when used at a normal
viewing distance.
Currently doing the rounds are the rumours that the iPhone 6 will
have a 4.8in screen, which would make the phone similar in size to the
Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One. At this screen size, Apple could then
move to a Full HD (1,920x1,080) resolution or even go beyond.
While Apple has not previously made a large-screen phone, upping the
screen size for the iPhone 6 makes a lot of sense. It means it can
compete with the large-screen phones from other manufacturers and keep
the iPhone 5S as a smaller alternative, giving iPhone users more choice.
Tim Cook has made a statement that would appear, on a first glance,
to deny a large-screen Apple iPhone 6. In an Apple earnings call, Cook
said, "My view continues to be that the iPhone 5 has the absolute best
display in the industry, and we always strive to create the very best
display for our customers.
"Some customers value large screen size, others value other factors
such as resolution, colour quality, white balance, brightness,
reflectivity, screen longevity, power consumption, portability,
compatibility with apps and many things. Our competitors had made some
significant trade-offs in many of these areas in order to ship a larger
display. We would not ship a larger display iPhone while these
trade-offs exist."
What that statement says, to us, is that Apple won't ship a
large-screen iPhone until it's managed to iron out all of the
trade-offs. A thinner screen, to make a lighter phone, could well be the
right way to go, then.
It's no wonder, then, that Apple may also be considering the screen
technology that it uses, with a Sharp IGZO (Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide)
screen top of the list. This new technology allows for screens that use
less power and are considerably thinner. Rumours certainly picked up
when the
Sharp IGZO technology was demonstrated at CES 2013.
Sharp has also started manufacturing a super-sensitive touchscreen,
which you can write on with a pencil and even operate with gloves on.
Given Apple's relationship with Sharp, rumours have linked the new
technology to the iPhone 6.
The new screen technology has eight times the sensitivity of existing
models, is scratch resistant and is also thinner than existing screens.
In other words, it would be hard to see why Apple wouldn't want this
technology.
iPHONE 6 GAZE DETECTION
A bigger screen requires more power, so any technology that can
increase battery life has to be good. For the iPhone 6 Apple could be
about to revisit gaze detection technology, where the phone can tell if
you're looking at the screen or not. If you were to look away, the phone
could pause a video playing and turn the screen off.
PatentlyApple has dug up the full information on how the technology is likely to work.
Given that Samsung has similar technology in its Galaxy S4
smartphone, we'd say there's a high chance that Apple will follow suit
and implement its own version.
iOS 7
Although incredibly innovative and easy to use when it was first
launch, iOS is now looking a bit dated. Each update to iOS has really
felt like a tweak, leaving the same user interface alone. Some would
argue that
iOS 6,
which was introduced with the iPhone 5, was actually a step backwards
with Apple Maps proving to be far worse than the Google Maps app it
replaced.
Well, we now know exactly what we're getting with
iOS 7,
which was unveiled at the Apple World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC)
in June). Designed by Jony Ive, the system is a big departure from the
current version. For starters, the interface and icons have all been
completely redesigned with a 'flatter' appearance. It's certainly more
modern looking.
On top of that, there are a raft of new features, including Control
Center, which lets you access common settings from a swipe-up menu; a
Today view in the Notification Center pull-down menu; AirDrop, which
lets you transfer files via Wi-Fi to other users; a new Camera app, with
new filters; and lots more.
[b]We will see iOS 7 in autumn, most likely with the iPhone 5S, but a tweaked version could come to the iPhone 6[/a]
Apple has said that iOS 7 will be released in autumn, which should
nicely coincide with the launch of the iPhone 5S. With the iPhone 6,
though, we're likely to get a tweaked version of the OS that introduces
some new features. For example, if the rumoured NFC chip makes it to the
iPhone 6, we may see a new Apple payments app.
iPHONE 6 CAMERA
One of the most important part of any smartphone is the camera, with
people generally preferring their phone over a compact camera. With the
competition putting a lot of effort into the quality of their cameras,
Apple has slightly fallen behind, with the iPhone 5's quality not
matching that of the Samsung Galaxy S4 or HTC One.
Recent rumours, reported by
MacRumours
have stated that the iPhone 5S will get a 12-megapixel sensor, up from
the 8-megapixel version on the iPhone 5. It stands to reason that the
iPhone 6 will get the same, or better, sensor.
Upping the sensor resolution can introduce problems with noise,
though, as there's less light per pixel. Apple will be keen to
counteract problems like this, so a lens with a faster aperture would
make sense. Currently the iPhone 5 has an f2.4 lens, but an f2.2 or f2.0
lens would mean better low-light photography.
iPHONE 6 STORAGE
In terms of storage, 64GB has been the top model for a couple of
years, so we'd expect the top model to now be 128GB. We know that Apple
now has that capacity, thanks to the recent launch of a
128GB iPad 4.
The new model doubled the maximum capacity of the previous high-end
iPad (64GB). This update was said to be about increasing the variety of
uses for the tablet, with Apple stating that more storage was good for
large files for use in applications such as CAD and music production.
It's also a more useful amount of storage for photos and videos.
The update to the iPad 4 was a completely new model with a new price,
so we'd expect the same range of capacities and prices to be available
from the iPad 5: 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB. With Apple now using 128GB
storage in its tablets, the question is whether or not it will provide
the same range of capacities in its iPhone and iPad Mini range, too.
Given that the capacity is now available to Apple and that the
smartphone market is even more competitive, we'd say that a 128GB
version of the new phone is more than likely.
NFC AND FINGERPRINT SENSOR
One of the omissions from the iPhone 5 was NFC, but with the
technology starting to appear in most new Android phones, we'd expect
this in the in iPhone 6. With Apple pushing its Passbook App, for
storing store cards, tickets and coupons, integrating this with NFC
would make a lot of sense.
With Apple also rumoured to be including a fingerprint sensor to
secure transactions, it would make sense for the company to also launch a
payments app, so that you can pay for items with your smartphone.
Contactless card readers are becoming more and more popular in the UK,
so the technology for receiving these payments is already there.
Apple did have a slight dig at NFC when it launched iOS 7's AirDrop
feature, saying that its technology was easier than bumping phones
together. However, that may be the case for transferring files, but for
secure payments NFC is a must. Most likely, Apple's dig is because NFC
is a technology that it currently doesn't have.
iPHONE 6 PROCESSOR
Judging what Apple will do with the processor is harder, but we'd
expect an updated model in the iPhone 6. Currently the iPhone 5 has a
dual-core Apple A6 processor, but a quad-core Apple A7, using ARM Cortex
A15-based cores, sounds plausible to us.
It also seems more than likely that Apple will use ARM's big.LITTLE
architecture. This allows a processor to have low-power cores that save
on battery life, when not much CPU power is required, switching to
full-power cores when more intensive tasks are required. Apple's always
been hot on battery life, so this move would make sense, particularly as
it's something that ARM's really pushing at the moment.
Alleged shots of the
iPhone 5S
have shown the internals of the phone, including an unknown processor.
Obviously, you can't tell specs from a shot of a chip, but a new
processor could well mean an A7 chip, which will be used in the iPhone
5S first, before making an appearance in the iPhone 6.
This alleged shot of the inside of an iPhone 5S shows an unknown processor - could it be the Apple A7?
iPHONE 6 PRICE
Apple typically releases its new models at the same price as the old
ones. If that holds out, then, and assuming that the 16GB model is
dropped, we'd expect the 32GB model to cost £529, the 64GB model £599
and the 128GB model £699. However, if the company continues to sell the
iPhone 5S, we could be in for some new pricing, with the iPhone 6 a
premium model that sits above it.
