Featured
iPhone 7s To Feature “All Glass Enclosure” In 2017
Apple’s 2017 flagship, the iPhone 7s, will bring a curved “all glass” bodyshell
A little while ago there was a big splurge of information about 2017’s iPhone line-up courtesy of the unnervingly accurate and reliable KGI Securities analyst Ming-chi Kuo; amongst the details he suggested that although Apple had not yet settled on a final design, the firm was considering a build made from ceramic, metal, or plastic, but still featuring glass bodywork components as well. According to his latest report to investors, detailed at 9To5Mac, Kuo now believes the iPhone 7s in 2017 will be the next major re-design of the series and will feature what he refers to as an “all glass enclosure”. Kuo’s suggestions remain interesting, if somewhat controversial, but remember this analyst has a very high accuracy rate in his history of reporting Apple’s movements ahead of time, so it’s worth taking his word seriously.
However, many were expecting a big iPhone re-design this year, 2016, with the iPhone 7, and with good reason; Apple has typically operated its new handset designs on what’s referred to as a “tick-tock” cycle, with the main number devices being the “tick” (iPhone 5, iPhone 6, iPhone 7) and seeing major design changes and new features, while the “tock” is the ‘S’ category phones (iPhone 5s, iPhone 6s) are generally incremental updates with the same design as their predecessor and a handful of smaller tweaks. Kuo’s report goes against this by claiming that this year’s iPhone 7 won’t be such a big change after all, and it’ll be 2017’s iPhone 7s before we see a big overhaul.
The key difference here though, is that if Kuo’s previous batch of info is anything to go by the next overhaul will be BIG, sounding like more-or-less a ground-up rebuild of the iPhone line. That’s also where this allegedly iPhone 4 inspired design comes in, apparently implementing newer curved-glass production technologies to replicate the much-loved iPhone 4 bodyshape but entirely (or almost entirely, we wonder if there will still be some metal) from glass. As cool as all this sounds though, the idea of an all-glass iPhone 7s does sound like it will lead to a lot of breakages! As with Kuo’s earlier rumours, the latest also reiterates the idea that the 2017 iPhone 7s will also mark Apple’s move from LCD display over to OLED.
11:22, 18 Apr 2016