Digitimes’ Yenting Chen, Rebecca Kuo, and Yvonne Yu report that, according to upstream component suppliers, Apple will increase the screen size of the iPhone 5 to four inches for its fifth-generation iPhone to compete with the Google Android platform in the 4- to 7-inch smartphone market.
The Digitimes reporters cite component suppliers saying production lines for Apple’s next generation iPhone 5 have begun testing, and Apple wants to expand the iPhone’s screen size to four inches to support the tablet PC market as a more pocketable alternative to its next-smallest igadget, the a 9.7-inch iPad, and note that smartphones currently running Google’s Android platform such as Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S and Google’s Nexus S, with Acer planning to launch a 4.8-inch smartphone. Other examples include HTC’s Evo 4G 4.3 inch and Incredible S 4 incher, Motorola’s Atrix at 4 inches and Droid X at 4.3 inches, and the Palm Pre3 is close at 3.58 inches.
So, with Apple joining the four inch and larger market, the 4- to 5.5-inch screen size category is shaping up to become the major battleground for smartphones that could alter industry dynamics for production of small to medium-size LCD panels.
Consistent With Other Rumors
Sounding a note of caution, blogger “Applebitch” acknowledges that Digitimes has made some accurate Apple product predictions in the past, but thinks their prognostication of a 4-inch iPhone screen is not entirely convincing. However, for argument’s sake, Applebitch speculates that there are two areas where a four inch display could potentially serve useful purpose — both the top and the bottom of the iPhone, and observes that the iPhone 5 could retain the same physical size but still have a larger screen vertically, which is consistent with other rumors published regarding removal of the home button on iOS devices. What implementation of the latter could mean in practical terms is discussed at some length in the blog, which you can read here.
Same Screen Resolution, Only Unobstructed?
Over at The Register, Rik Myslewski riffs on a whole round of new or refreshed iPhone 5 rumors running off in different directions at once, such as the larger screen, a smaller phone, a slide-out keyboard, and cloud-only operation la Google’s still-gestating Chrome OS. Myslewski muses that If DigiTimes’s sources are correct about a 4 inch iPhoneiPhone 5, that would simply bring it in line with many of the more-popular competing smartphones available now as well as other recently announced but not-yet-shipping handsets, but notes that in order to maintain the same 960-by-640 pixel resolution in a 4-inch display, the pixel-per-inch count would have to drop to 288 ppi, which seems unlikely after all the hoopla that Apple generated around the release of the iPhone 4′s retina display. However, as noted by Applebitch, the extra room could be dedicated to getting controls off the main screen while retaining the present screen resolution, only unobstructed.
What About An iPhone 5 “nano”?
As for the iPhone 5 “nano” rumors, speculated to relate to a phone one-half to two-thirds the size of the current iPhone 4, Myslewski thinks they have some plausibility, since not everyone needs or wants a full-featured, full-sized, expensive, computer-in-your-pocket smartphone.
Slide-Out Keyboard iPhone 5 Rumors Likely “Vapor”
Then there’s the Chinese-language website tw.apple.pro that claims an iPhone 5 with a slide-out keyboard is in the works, which Myslewski thinks highly unlikely, and this writer agrees. While Apple has taken a lot of stick from analog keyboard fans for not having a real keyboard in the iPhone (and for that matter the iPad either), including from me, Myslewski maintains that virtual keyboards are here to stay and neither he nor I anticipate Apple backtracking on that point. One needs to be careful what they wish for in a context like this. Adding a slide-out keyboard would either have to mandate a bigger iPhone or compromise on other internal content and features to make room, neither of which I think would appeal to a majority of iPhone fans. I suggest the slide-out keyboard iPhone is a chimera, and if Apple ever did go with such a feature, we would probably see it on the iPad (don’t hold your breath) first.
iPhone 5 nano And “Cloud Computing”
Myslewski thinks the most intriguing iPhone rumor is from Cult of Mac’s Leander Kahney, who suggests that the rumored iPhone 5 nano would have no memory for onboard storage of media, but only enough memory to buffer media streamed from “the cloud” with all of it’s content streamed from Apple’s MobileMe servers, amounting to a phone with essentially a mostly cloud-based version of the iOS. I’ve been sucked somewhat into the Cloud for email, but think Cloud computing is being way oversold, at least at the current stage of Internet ubiquity development. For example, with a Cloud-based iPhone with minimal internal storage capacity, where would you store pictures even temporarily, especially when out of Internet range (which includes a lot more of the planet than many urban dwellers acclimatized to Internet almost everywhere might imagine)?
As Myslewski observes, one solution to that would be to have a cameraless iPhone nano, but I expect such a machine’s appeal would be limited to say the least. Kahney concedes that no onboard memory would mean that photos and video would have to be streamed UP to the cloud, presumably in real-time, and the phone would need to constantly have stream a bunch of other data in real-time as well. iPhoning in the Cloud would also limit the variety of apps you could run to whatever selection Apple posted for online access, but I agree with him that a smaller iPhone alternative in some configuration can’t be ruled out.
As usual, Apple is keeping its silence on unreleased products, so all of this is speculative.
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