A new report claims that Apple will go back to its roots and launch a 4.7 and 5.7-inch iPhone 6 at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
When Samsung was busy building and releasing Galaxy Note phablets for the last three years, Apple saw the device as a niche product that it believed consumers would not want to carry. This way of thinking isn't new for Apple, as Steve Jobs famously said that the iPhone's 3.5-inch display was the perfect size and upcoming Android smartphones with gigantic 4-inch displays would be dead on arrival. The company has an excellent track record with predicting what consumers want before they want it, but it missed the boat when it came to smartphones with larger displays. The company caved in and released the 4-inch iPhone 5 in 2012 and since then, smartphone displays have continued to grow.
Apple is expected to finally join the phablet party this year and a new report claims that it will offer an iPhone 6 with two display sizes - 4.7 and 5.7-inches. The information comes from QQ Tech, who received this tip from an analyst who claims that Apple will ramp up production of a 4.7-inch iPhone 6 as soon as May and the smartphone will make its debut at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June. The iPhone 6 will reportedly have a 4.7-inch display with a resolution of 1136 x 640, which is the same resolution of both the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c.
The analyst goes on to say that Apple will introduce the company's first phablet shortly after it releases the 4.7-inch iPhone 6. The 5.7-inch smartphone will also reportedly be an iPhone 6 model and its display will have a much higher resolution than the purported 4.7-inch model.
If there is any truth to this report, it would be a total departure from Apple's iPhone release schedule. The company uses its June WWDC to announce and show off its latest Mac OS X and iOS upgrades and holds a separate event in the fall to announce new iPhones.
It's pretty safe to assume that Apple will release an iPhone with a larger display to better compete with Android phablets such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, but don't bet on seeing that device make its debut at WWDC 2014.
