Bloomberg: ‘Apple’s Big iPhones Said to Start Production Next Month’

Tim Culpan and Peter Burrows, reporting for Bloomberg:

Apple is ramping up on two bigger-screen iPhones, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private. One model will have a 4.7-inch screen that may be available to ship to retailers around September, said two of the people. A larger 5.5-inch version is also being prepared for manufacturing and may be available at the same time, the people said.

What are the pixel dimensions?

Is one of these phones a higher-end model than the other, like the iPhone 5S and 5C? Or are they two different sizes of the same-spec’d device, like the iPads Air and Mini?

Apple is getting ready for its annual unveiling of new iPhones, with bigger screens beyond the 4 inches of its current iPhone 5s after rivals including Samsung Electronics Co. and HTC Corp. released smartphones with displays that are as large as 5.7 inches. Consumers have been gravitating toward larger-screen devices — in China, 40 percent of mobile gadgets based on Google Inc.’s Android operating system that were sold in 2014 had display sizes of more than 5 inches, according to an estimate from Forrester Research.

What about the 4-inch size? Is there going to be a new 4-inch iPhone too? If the logic for Apple making a big iPhone is that lots of people are buying big-screened Android phones, doesn’t it also hold that they should keep making 4-inch iPhones, given the immense popularity of the iPhone as it stands today?

Most people keep presenting this as a “bigger is better” situation, and that Apple has thus been caught flat-footed and behind, and now with the introduction of bigger-display iPhones they’re catching up. (Insert a finally here.) But to me it makes more sense to see it as a situation where an array of screen sizes to choose from is better than one-size-fits-all. Why not keep the 4-inch size and add a bigger iPhone (or two?).

★ Tuesday, 24 June 2014