iPhone rumours are everywhere. Image: Hadrian/Shutterstock
With curved screens and wireless charging, the iPhone rumour merry-go-round continues, a full seven months before the expected release date.
The annual September release of Apple’s iPhone remains one of the most popular events in the consumer tech industry.
Potentially bigger news than Mobile World Congress in Spain in February, or SXSW in Texas in March (each of which each see almost every device manufacturer make an attendance), the iPhone release captures its target audience better than most.
Where were we?
No sooner after the iPhone is released do the fawning reviews rush in, Apple-enthused forums overflow and the inevitable whispers of future rumours ensue.
And so here we are in February, five months after the release of the most successful iPhone to date and seven months ahead of its successor, and rumours are wedging their way into the mainstream.
What have we got today? Wireless charging and curved screens: drama.
We’ll start with the screen rumour. According to The Korea Herald, Samsung is supplying Apple with a vastly increased number of OLED displays, which are used in Samsung’s curved Galaxy S series, for example.
Presumably Apple will want to use the 160m units they have ordered, so putting two and two together rather sensibly adds up to ‘iPhone’ in this case.
Should this deal result in a new iPhone, and one which Apple fans will now doubt adore, it would make Samsung’s importance to Apple’s operation ever greater, which is a wonderful irony at a time of such litigious dispute between the duo.
Power play
Elsewhere, Apple has joined the Wireless Power Consortium, an industry group that develops a wireless charging standard.
The assumption is that the upcoming iPhone will therefore permit wireless charging, something that its rivals are already looking at.
The body Apple has joined oversees a charging standard called Qi, ensuring interoperability among different products and brands that support wireless charging.
Last month, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggested a trio of iPhone devices for 2017, all with wireless charging and a new 3D Touch module that will have additional graphite sheet lamination to prevent the all-glass device from overheating.
Next month’s rumours will no doubt include audio compatibility, and April will bring reports of battery power before a summer of bezels and authentication stories emerge.
