A report from the usually-reliable KGI has repeated many of the details from our exclusives on the iPhone 6S, but additionally offered support for an earlier rumor that the front camera will be upgraded to 5MP. Surprisingly, it also suggests that the rear camera lens may not be sapphire, as it has apparently failed drop tests.
Aside from upgrading rear camera module to 12MP, Apple will upgrade front camera module to 5MP […] The new iPhone may not be equipped with sapphire cover lens, as it still has quality issues on the drop test.
Although sapphire is much more scratch-resistant than Gorilla Glass, it is more brittle, and thus at greater risk of shattering when dropped.
The company also repeated its concerns that limited appeal of the new features, together with external economic factors, is likely to result in flat or negative sales growth …
If Force Touch fails to create attractive selling points, together with slowing consumption in China and mobile operators cutting subsidies for high-end smartphones, we expect shipments of new iPhone in 2015F to be flattish from or slightly lower than the combined 73mn units sold of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus last year.
KGI’s original concern about the potential limited appeal of Force Touch was voiced a day after my opinion piece.
We previously saw evidence for an uprated front camera in photos of the front glass, showing a larger lens aperture (below). Other specs listed by KGI simply repeat what we’ve already reported: storage capacity of 16/64/128GB; 12MP rear camera; Force Touch; rose gold casing. The new iPhone will be unveiled by Apple on 9th September.
KGI’s pessimism on sales potential contrasted with data from Kantar, which suggested “ample opportunity for iPhone upgrades” this year and next.
Larger lens aperture seen here in the black front panel
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Oh great. Selfies of ugly moviestars now in hi-res, when someone “pulls an Ashley Madison”.
Here’s to another bitching thread on the 16GB entry model. Have at it¡
finally decent selfies cuz now they look like a painting
My WISH – Someone would “leak” what time the Apple Store will start accepting pre-orders and is it better to do it from a computer or an iPhone?
Last years “pre-order fiasco” was unforgivable . . . . OK, I forgive you, Apple – but get it together this year!
I guess on from 11th Sept and onwards you will be able to pre-order it. 6S going to be out on 18th Sept.
16gb in a flagship phone (the more expensive in the market) is just ridiculous, force touch is nice but gimmicky, imo the camera and the 2GB of ram are the real upgrades but they are not worth buying a whole new phone. Maybe people should wait for the next nexus phone, it will probably be way cheaper and perform really well with android 6.0
Exactly. I’d take 2GB of ram over Force Touch any day.
Like I said before, I think Apple refused to upgrade the cameras on iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus because they needed those upgrades for the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus. The iPhone 6 was a redesign, bigger display and so this was already a huge reason for people to upgrade. The 6S’ won’t have any of those 2 upgrades so they kept the camera upgrades for the 6S’.
I hate this strategy and also hate the fact they will be sticking with the 16GB entry iPhone and iPad. It’s all about margins at Apple. Money money money.
6 and 6 Plus did recieve camera upgrades just not resolution. Don’t tell me you still believe more resoulution equals better picture. I’m pretty sure Apple only upgraded this time to 13MP camera to support 4K video (with DIS)
Plus no iPhone 6 user is inteded to buy a 6S rather this is targeted to people with much older devices like. You even discussing about changing phone every year just speaks on how much money you have
“It’s all about margins at Apple. Money money money.”
How is that comment any different for any other company producing hardware? Don’t kid yourself, they ALL wish they had the margins Apple has.
And unless you work at Apple at a pretty high level, you’re making a wild guess with your assertion that “….they kept the camera upgrades for the 6S.”
Basically, you don’t know, I don’t know…. and it has been reported that Apple pulled the Apple TV at the last minute before WWDC, because it wasn’t ready for general release.
How do you know that wasn’t the case with the camera upgrades? I’ll answer that for you, you don’t know.
In principle, I agree that 16GB is not too low for entry point of a flagship device. Having said that, your comments are are bit ridiculous as nobody in their right mind is going to switch entire platforms based on specs like this.
Nobody will upgrade from the 6 to the 6S,none of the features are compelling enough. But that doesn’t mean that people with a 4, 5, or Android phone won’t buy this, the best phone on the market. Myself, and almost everyone I know, has never upgraded every year, but every other year. So I would think that ‘6’ users were never the intended market for the 6S. That is why I don’t think his prediction makes sense. By the way, although he has usually been right about features and dates of new products, he was spectacularly wrong predicting sales earlier this year. It would be nice all the people revering him remembered that.
I agree. I’m an iPhone 6 64GB user and will not be upgrading to the 6S. I am dying for a 2GB RAM iPhone but I know Apple purposely didn’t put 2GB of RAM in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Like with the cameras, they wanted to keep this upgrade for the ‘S’ iPhone because they need to convince people it’s a worthy upgrade. Well I refuse to fall into that trap. My next iPhone will be iPhone 7 16GB. I will also buy the entry level iPhone 7 because I also refuse to give Apple 100$ for 48GB of added storage. Apple deserves to ask a lot of money for their products because they are awesome but they do not deserve 100$ for putting another flash storage chip into the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch that costs them just 10$ or so.
Apple should honor, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, by renaming the red gold to Queens gold
Kind of disgraceful Apple used the same front facing cameras for 5 different iPhones in 3 years. They also used the same back camera for 6 different iPhones in 4 years.
Please don’t tell me photos are not only about megapixels. I know that, but the jump in photo and video quality from iPhone 4 to iPhone 4S was huge. So was the jump from iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4. And those huge jumps stopped after the 4S.
Apple should upgrade more aspects of their cameras and faster. At leadt every 2 years a MP increase.
Don’t say this “Please don’t tell me photos are not only about megapixels.” and then finish with this “At least every 2 years a MP increase.” You look dumb with contradictions like that. The camera tech behind iPhones is great. The 5S improved beyond the 4S and 5 by making the pixels even smaller–more detail. The iPhone 6/6+ was even more improved in low light and the 6+ I have has OIS which makes a noticeable difference. Their camera upgrades are just fine.
Nice strawman fallacy “smart guy”
Do the 6 and 6 Plus have a rear sapphire lenses? The only thing that is sapphire is Touch ID?
They do have sapphire lenses, and they are quite brittle. My wife broke the lens on her camera the first day she had the phone.
Oh. Okay. Thanks for that.
Higher megapixel front facing camera and front flash LED is in response to the growing trend in taking selfies. Eventually the rear facing camera will get the right angle via mirror design that supports optical zoom. That should put the competition in their place.
For safety Apple should have an auto zoom out and easy timer for selfies.
About time for FaceTime cameras to get better, to bad nobody ever adapted Favetike besides Aplle.
battery duration. the only thing that matters. let’s see…
I don’t see a link to the original report, but are we sure that “Sapphire Cover Lens” isn’t referring to the front panel of the device? It seems strange to me that a sapphire cover on the rear camera would be a potential issue since they’ve been using them for several generations now (Since the iPhone 5 I think?).