A trio of new rumors from a handful of Asian sources have popped up over the holiday and today, each predicting a different facet of the upcoming ‘iPhone 6S‘. While these are still just very unverified whispers at the moment, odds are that at least one of these will end up coming at least partially true.
Here’s a roundup of the latest iPhone rumors, in no particular order:
A10 Processor
OK, we lied just a little bit. First up is a rumor that’s not so much about the iPhone 6S as it is the iPhone 7. Specifically, this rumor has to do with the “A10” processor that will likely be used to power the new handset in 2016.
A Taiwanese report discovered by GforGames claims that the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company will be producing all of the chips for the new iPhone. Previous rumors indicated that Apple has elected to use TSMC for only one-third of its A9 processors (which will appear in the iPhone 6S this year).
Whether TSMC will actually be the sole manufacturer has yet to be seen, but Apple has previously been burned by its reliance on a single manufacturer for both sapphire crystal iPhone displays and Taptic Engines for the Apple Watch. It seems unlikely the Cupertino company would decide to put all of its eggs in one basket again, given how badly things have gone when the tech giant’s leadership failed to prepare for contingencies in the past.
The rumor also claims that the chips will be manufactured using a 10nm process that will enable the creation of faster, more powerful hardware. It’s not a big surprise that Apple would consider building a beefier CPU for its latest phone, so that part of the rumor, at least, seems credible.
TSMC is said to be preparing a pilot line of this chip for the end of June, roughly the same time the iPhone 6S is rumored to be entering production.
Smaller LED Backlight
The next rumor has to do with the backlight that powers the iPhone’s display. A new report suggests that Apple will be switching to a model that’s 0.2 mm thinner than the one found in the iPhone 6 line, but comes with an unfortunate side effect. The newer model is said to be 10% dimmer than its predecessor, meaning Apple will have to use additional chips to achieve the same level of brightness.
Granted: this rumor comes from DigiTimes, so it’s best taken with a Bonneville of salt. Regardless, like the faster processors, a thinner backlight seems like exactly the type of move Apple would make in an incremental iPhone update. This rumor sounds like a pretty safe bet.
Improved Camera
The final rumor for this roundup deals with the iPhone’s rear camera. We’ve already seen some (very fake) images floating around of an iPhone 6-style phone sporting dual cameras on the back, but this rumor seems a bit more believable.
The latest claim from Feng says that Apple will finally move on from its 8MP sensor to a new 12MP model. The new sensor will be an RGBW model from Sony. This is far from the first time we’ve heard of a 12MP upgrade for the iPhone, but several recent reports have indicated that this might actually be the year that it happens. Apple has reportedy spent an entire year quality testing the camera.
Autofocus speed on the new camera is also said to be improved.
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Thinner, new chip, improved camera. They really went out on a limb…
I completely agree. I hate these articles like, “New analyst claims new iPhone will have faster processor and improved camera.” Really?! Woah! I thought for sure it was going to have an A4 processor and a 3MP camera this time!
Lol, to be fair, the 2015 macbook has a 480p front facing cam :P Even the iPod touch has a better camera than that heh.
In other news today, it’s been reported that if you don’t take an umbrella with you when it’s raining outside, you will probably get wet. Read all about it…
“More powerful chip” and “bigger camera.” That should do wonders for the battery life.
I think the new chips are the smaller die size so they might not need as much power to drive them. cross fingers. I believe there is a newer battery technology that Apple’s working on, at least that’s what I read several months ago. But this is all speculation. Apple typically doesn’t enhance their phones and get worse battery life, so I’m sure they’ll figure something out.
Since battery tech is what it is, with every iteration of chip comes ridiculous power savings. That’s why laptops today are able to get so much time on battery power alone compared to laptops from 5 years ago — has nothing to do with the batteries, it’s all about how the chips can work together with the software to save power. Apple is a game changer in this area.
I love the definitives Mike Beas includes in his posts. Example, “given how badly things have gone when the tech giant’s leadership failed to prepare for contingencies in the past.” You can always (my definitive) find at least one anti-Apple rhetoric rant in his post. Reminds me of those Android user that know their hardware and software are inferior so they conjure up these factless tales of Apple failure.
For a series of sites that started with this one, I’m often puzzled by the eagerness to jump on a malleable piece of Apple news, big or small, and try to paint it in a very negative light. I’m not saying I want blind cheerleading, but sometimes (Like with Jony’s new position) there is an odd negativity that seems forceful.
A separate instance, but 9to5 was starting to turn on Tim before the general media finally fell in love with him the last year and a half. It was sour and I never understood it. Whatever, they get me coming back here, because frankly, with as much garbage that has started spewing, they still have every major news piece in once place and in a timely fashion. They still fulfill their purpose, but with a lot more baggage than we use to get.
Surfing Reddit on the toilet at work is going to be so much better.
Unappologetically thin
I want my next iPhone to be thinner than paper but with the same great battery life.
I want a bigger camera, maybe something that’s about 1/2″ wide and sticks out the back of the phone by an inch. Now that’s a bigger camera!
And don’t forget- MOAR of everything. These are amazingly insightful rumors.
Anything about the move from Lightning to USB-C? Not really required till 2017, the EU has pushed (and why Apple wanted to lead) for a single connector solution for all phones and tablets.
The EU has nothing to do with anything. They can go piss up a rope. They wanted to mandate micro usb, one of the worst connectors ever made, and they were laughed out of the ballgame.
Apple stated Lightning will be in place for the next 10 years. USB-C is not replacing it.
Bonneville of salt. I smiled at that.
Thinner not very likely. On one hand Ive would just love it, but the prospect of them having another bendgate this year doesn’t make this very plausible…
Can we also have RAM match leading Android devices?
I know iOS overhead is smaller when compared to Android, but it’s not significant nowadays.
More RAM extends device lifetime as users are not experiencing such big slowdowns with new iOS releases, hence sticking with an older device. Apple cares about environment, but this impacts their sales pattern too.
“More RAM extends device lifetime as users are not experiencing such big slowdowns with new iOS releases”
You don’t think this has more to do with the A-series chips doubling in performance every year? An 3 year old iPhone 5 scores 709 on Geekbench compared to a iPhone 6 which scores 1613! I’d say it’s the faster chip more than a RAM constraint. It’s even more stark when you compare the 6 to a 4S, which scores 216 on Geekbench (https://browser.primatelabs.com/ios-benchmarks).
I’m sure that going from 1GB to 2GB will help in some areas like background game-state saving and safari tabs, but it won’t really make things faster, and there’s rapid diminishing returns on this. Jumping to 3GB or 4GB over 2GB won’t really be noticeable for most people. There’s more benefit from Apple using lower power RAM instead of more RAM, as there’s quite a bit of battery life that could be found there.
I expect both more RAM and lower powered RAM this year… IF there’s enough world supply for 200+ million iOS devices.
> You don’t think this has more to do with the A-series chips doubling in performance every year?
I do not. These benchmarks are for people who do not really understand how computers work.
Have you actually monitored how your phone works? My 4S has constantly around 40MB of free RAM left. Every context change requires swaping everything to slower flash memory. The CPU utilisation only goes up when you try to render some panoramas, which it mostly achieves fine, unless… it runs out of RAM and apps crash. Now, the screen resolution haven’t changed with updates and actual graphic memory use should have decreased as flat UI is obviously simpler. It’s the additional services that ate up all the memory.
> Jumping to 3GB or 4GB over 2GB won’t really be noticeable for most people.
Yeah, tell me your x64 laptop still has 4GB memory.
> IF there’s enough world supply for 200+ million iOS devices.
Are you kidding mate? Android ships few times more devices nowadays. Even MacBook Air is coming with same type of RAM (LPDDR3).
tell that to my friend who is constantly running at 1.5GB on his note 4. it still is significant.
Get him to update to modern Android version, preferably to Cyanogenmod which strips all OEM nonsense.
Or better, get him an iPhone.
What a waste of 1s & 0s.
‘iPhone 6S rumors’ which total three, including one that’s about the iPhone 7, one that even you don’t believe and one that is somewhat plausible… Bravo. I hope you hit your cents per word target with this piece.