iPhone 7 release date rumours & features

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iPhone 7 release date rumours, new features, patents | iPhone 7 could have a ceramic back


iPhone 7 rumours are flying, and we've picked up lots of hints about new features that could appear in the iPhone 7, from wireless charging to a touchscreen with built-in Touch ID. It's believed that Apple is going to ditch the 3.5mm headphone jack - and people aren't happy. And we've got our first leaked photos of iPhone 7 prototypes

When will the iPhone 7 come out? (And when will it launch in the UK?) What new features and design changes can we expect in the new iPhone for 2016 when it comes out? And what will Apple's next iPhone be called? iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus? iPhone 7 mini? Something new?
The iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus launched in September 2015, so now we're starting to excitedly think about what this year's iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus could bring. The web is full of speculation about new iPhone(s) that Apple will launch in 2016, and in this article we gather all the rumours about the iPhone 7: release date, design, specs and new features, from wireless charging to a touchscreen displaywith built-in Touch ID. Plus any leaked photos of iPhone 7 components we get hold of, and all the cool iPhone 7 concept illustrations and videos that designers have come up with.
We're sure to see a next-generation iPhone in 2016, but what will the new iPhone 7 look like? (Traditionally, Apple alternates between internal upgrades for the 'S' update, then a physical redesign for the full-number update, so a completely redesigned chassis is likely.) What new features should we expect? And when will the iPhone 7 come out? We round up the evidence to bring you everything there is to know about the iPhone 7 so far.
In this article we talk about the 4.7-inch iPhone 7 - the follow-up to the iPhone 6s. If you'd like to read about the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus, take a look at our iPhone 7 Plus release date and new features rumour roundup.
Bookmark this page for a regularly updated summary of all the information currently available - and all the rumours doing the rounds - related to the iPhone 7: details, clues, hints and rumours, as well as any leaked photos of the iPhone 7 that emerge. We'll update the article whenever we hear worthwhile new information (or scurrilous but interesting gossip) on the subject of Apple's next iPhone.
Main sections in this article:
If you're looking for information about the current iPhone range, by the way, read our iPhone 6s review, Phone 6s Plus review, iPhone 6 review, iPhone 6 Plus reviewand iPhone 5s review; and our iPhone buyers' guide.
For more rumour-mongering and future-gazing, take a look at Apple patents and the clues they offer about the future of iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch & Mac.

In a nutshell: Macworld's verdict on the iPhone 7

In our iPhone 7 rumour roundup we cover a lot of ground: you'd be amazed by the clues, hints and general speculation about the iPhone 7 that people have managed to dig up. But for those who don't want all the detail, the following section sums up our verdict on the whole thing. Consider it a sort of TL;DR for the article as a whole.
In a nutshell, then, we reckon:
1) Apple will launch two new iPhones in September 2016, and just possibly three. The theory that Apple will push the main iPhone 7 launch forward to summer 2016 seems thin to us, but it is possible we will see an update to the 4-inch iPhone line earlier than the autumn, and maybe even as soon as March 2016.
2) We expect a 4.7-inch phone (called the iPhone 7), and a 5.5-inch model (theiPhone 7 Plus). If Apple does make another 4-inch iPhone (which, thanks to the success of the larger iPhones, is by no means a certainty) then we think it'll be called something like the iPhone 7 mini, but iPhone 6c, iPhone 6e and iPhone 5se are possibilities too.
3) The iPhone 7 is likely to get a substantial physical redesign after the largely identical iPhone 6/6s generations. It's too early to know what direction Apple will pick, but it's likely to be thinner than ever: removing the headphone jack would be one way to help achieve this, forcing music fans to use wireless Bluetooth headphones, or headphones that connect via the Lightning port, or an adaptor. The 'no headphone jack' rumour is starting to gather momentum, with multiple 'confirmations' via multiple (but anonymous) supply chain sources, although we've yet to see firm evidence ourselves. Other design tweaks could include a flush camera and the removal of the antenna bars.
4) Battery life in the iPhone 7 may be a little better than in the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, but Jony Ive's comments have made it plain that Apple doesn't consider a higher battery life to be worth significant sacrifices in other areas (we suspect that, if they're honest, most smartphone buyers would agree) and Apple's larger-screen iPhones have decent batteries already. You can always buy the lovely new battery pack case...
5) Higher screen resolution is a possibility - Apple undermined its own 'Retina is as sharp as your eyes can see' myth with the iPhone 6 Plus, and the company is playing catchup against many of its rivals in terms of screen resolution. Apple may well take the higher pixel density that was exclusive to the iPhone 6 Plus and 6s Plus (401 pixels per inch, as compared to 326ppi for all non-Plus iPhones), and apply it to all the models in the next generation; it could even raise the pixel density further than this, although we fear that this is unlikely. And a harder screen material would play well, whether Apple manages to resurrect the sapphire situation or goes with Corning's new Project Phire.
6) 16GB will surely be phased out as the lowest storage offering. It's nowhere near enough in this day and age. We hope and expect the iPhone 7 to start at 32GB, with 64GB and 128GB options.
7) The iPhone 7 could get a USB-C port, like the new 12-inch MacBook, but we think this is unlikely. The change from 30-pin to Lightning is recent enough (and was painful enough for many users) that to switch again now would be highly controversial.
8) And as for the other out-there rumours? 3D screen: no. Curved display: probably not. Flexible display: nope. Edge-to-edge screen: yes, quite possibly. Spring-out gaming joystick in the Home button: definitely not. Wireless charging: quite possibly. Better waterproofing: a reasonable bet, although the self-healing ports aren't likely to appear for a while yet.

Macworld poll: What iPhone 7 feature do you want the most?

Let us know which feature you'd be most excited about for the iPhone 7 by answering our poll:

iPhone 7 rumours: What is the iPhone 7?

Sorry if that sounds obvious, but it's not as simple a question as it sounds. The iPhone 7 isn't the seventh iPhone (the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus were the 11th and 12th iPhones respectively, in the product's ninth generation, so that ship sailed a long time ago) but it's what we have been for convenience calling Apple's next iPhone launch.
At the moment Apple sells iPhones in three sizes: with 4-inch screens (the iPhone 5s); with a 4.7-inch screen (the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s) and with a 5.5-inch screen (the iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 6s Plus). We're currently working on the basis that Apple will make at least one new model in the latter two sizes, and for now we're choosing to call those theoretical devices iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. There could be another 4-inch iPhone, though - which we like to call the iPhone 7 mini but could be called almost anything at this point.
In fact, the iPhone 7 mini, or iPhone 5se as it is currently being called, has hit the headlines big time over the past week or so, and it's rumoured to be arriving as soon as March. Find out more in our iPhone 6c round-up.

iPhone 7 release date rumours: When is the iPhone 7 coming out?

If Apple sticks to its traditions, we can expect the iPhone 7 to arrive in mid-September 2016.
The iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus were unveiled on 9 September 2015 (and released to the public on 25 September), iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus were unveiled on 9 September 2014 (released on 19 September); the iPhone 5c and iPhone 5swere unveiled on 10 September 2013; the iPhone 5 was unveiled on 12 September. There's a pattern there that the eagle-eyed reader may be able to spot. 
Our money is on the 6th, 7th, 13th or 14th of September 2016, since it's usually a Tuesday or a Wednesday. Clear your diary.
UPDATE: There could be some delay for the launch of the iPhone 7, though, or at least a lower than expected supply at launch after an earthquake in Taiwan thatcaused damage to Apple supplier TSMC's factories. Earlier in February, reports stated that TSMC has reached a deal with Apple to become the company's sole manufacturor of the A10 chip for the iPhone 7.

iPhone 7 launch date rumours: iPhone 7 could be released as early as summer

AppleInsider is quoting a "reliable source" who predicts that 2016's iPhone 7 will launch several months ahead of the usual yearly upgrade cycle, appearing in the summer of 2016 instead of in September.
The site states that this particular source "has, in the past, provided accurate information about Apple's future product plans", but while this may be true, it must be pointed out that plenty of other sources have made this exact prediction about previous iPhone launches and they've always been wrong. It's just one of those things that gets repeated every year because it's such an appealing rumour.
Apple has significantly shifted its iPhone launch cycle only once: the first four iPhones all launched in summer, then Apple pushed the iPhone 4s back to the autumn, and then every iPhone since then has stuck to that launch cycle. (The iPhone 4s came along in October, admittedly, rather than the September launch date that Apple has followed ever since the iPhone 5.)
If Apple changed the cycle once, it can certainly change it again. But it won't do so lightly: an unexpectedly early upgrade is always infuriating for those who've just bought the previous generation model, and it creates the suspicion that the company might pull a similar trick the following year, leading to a customer base that is more cautious about upgrading. What's more, Apple's natural cycle of announcements sees iOS and OS X upgrades announced at WWDC in June, leaving enough time for the software to be completed in time for the autumn hardware launches. It seems like a risk for Apple to announce everything in the summer and leave its customers hungry for new releases for the rest of the year.
And the reasoning for why Apple would push forward the iPhone 7 launch date is thin.
"This year's iPhone 6s upgrade features largely the same external design as the iPhone 6," argues AppleInsider. "That has prompted concerns among investors that demand for the iPhone 6s could wane, particularly toward the tail end of the product cycle… Launching the iPhone 7 in an earlier window of 2016 would be one way for Apple to address those concerns."
The thing is, every S-class iPhone upgrade has been accused of offering only minor upgrades on the previous generation, yet they all still sell well. And if anything the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus represent more significant upgrades than the iPhone 4s and iPhone 5s did: Live Photos is fun, 3D Touch has the potential to alter the way we think about smartphone interfaces, and the processor and cameras are much improved. Even Touch ID is noticeably quicker.
So while this isn't out of the question, we can't see that any convincing reason has been given why Apple should shift its update schedule next year. (Mind you, as Boy Genius Report points out, this rumour might be a mixup based on Apple's imminent release of a new 4-inch iPhone, which wouldn't replace the iPhone 6s or 6s Plus and therefore wouldn't be such a disruptive launch if it came in the summer. Read ouriPhone 6c rumours for more on that, or read the next section for the theory that Apple will split its iPhone launches into two yearly events.)

iPhone 7 launch date rumours: Two iPhones a year

So much for the likely launch date. But it's possible - and has been widely speculated - that Apple will begin releasing new iPhones twice a year, to help it keep up with the ever growing and ever improving competition. This would mean an iPhone launch event in the spring of 2015 followed by another in the autumn.
In this case we would expect less dramatic enhancements in each update: perhaps the full iPhone 7 in autumn, followed by an 'S'-class update in the spring. Or Apple might choose to update its 4-inch smartphones in one set of announcements and its larger phones in the other.
It's an interesting theory, but if we were betting men and women Macworld would put its money on September iPhone launches for some time to come.
Apple usually keeps the same design for two generations of the iPhone (the 4 and 4s, say, or the 6 and 6s), before unveiling a physical redesign on the next update. We expect the iPhone 7 to be fundamentally different in look and design to the two generations of iPhone that precede it.
It's possible that Apple will use different materials to make the iPhone 7 more durable. Before the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus were unveiled there was speculation that Apple would use Sapphire glass for the display and Liquidmetal for the chassis, and two generations later Apple may be ready to unveil one or both of these upgrades.
On 2 February, new reports emerged that suggest the iPhone 7 will no longer have a protruding camera on the rear, and will ditch the antenna bands in favour of a completely unbroken rear casing.
That's according to a source that allegedly spoke with MacRumors, revealing the details about the iPhone 7 design for the first time.
NEW: And this could be achieved through the use of a ceramic back rather than metal, according to Business Korea's 5 February report, but there's no real evidence to support this yet. Take a look at the rendering shared by Business Korea below.

iPhone 7 design rumours: 'Confirmation' that Apple is ditching 3.5mm headphone port

After Mac Otakara proposed the idea in late 2015 (see below), two Chinese-language sites have separately offered what they claim is 'confirmation', based on sources in the supply chain, that Apple will not include a 3.5mm headphone jack in the iPhone 7 - although of course it is possible that their sources are the same person, or that one site is just following the other's story. (For what it's worth, neither site links to the other.)
Anzhuo (link will require translation) cites "supply chain news" and claims that Apple "has confirmed [that it has] cancelled [the] 3.5mm headphone jack on the next iPhone, [and] meanwhile will replace wired headset [with a] Bluetooth wireless headset."
The firm suggests that users will be restricted to wireless headphones, since "headphone Lightning previously said interface may not exist" - a translation-mangled phrase we take to mean that we probably won't be able to connect any Apple-bundled headphones via the Lightning port. (Third-party headphones that connect via Lightning are already available, albeit rare.) But any Chinese-literate readers are welcome to take issue with our interpretation.
Meanwhile, Wei Feng, poetically reporting "the latest coming from the mouth of the supply chain of wind", states that Apple indeed plans to get rid of "the traditional body in the next generation iPhone headphone jack, and will start from this year for the iPhone with wireless Bluetooth headsets". Wei Feng doesn't specify that the Lightning EarPod story is dead, as Anzhuo did, but makes no mention of any alternative to wireless headsets.
Fast Company is the latest site to 'confirm' this rumour, citing "a source with knowledge of the company’s plans". The site predicts that "the new phone will rely on its Lightning cable port for sound output to wired headphones".
And on 20 January, Cult of Mac shared iOS 9 code that could further hint at the removal of the headphone jack for the iPhone 7. Twitter user Chase Fromm highlighted a bit of code within the iOS 9.3 beta 1.1 software that reads: "Headphones.have.%input.NO."
The 3.5mm headphone jack won't be with us forever, of course (and Apple has a history of controversially jumping off soon-to-be-obsolete technologies ahead of the curve, as it did with Adobe Flash, CD/DVD drives, FireWire, conventional USB ports and so on), but to ditch it without offering any wired alternative strikes us as extreme, even if it would allow Apple to make the iPhone 7 even thinner, squeeze in a bigger battery or whatever.
And what do the headphone companies make of all this speculation? Interestingly enough, as the Verge observes, most of the companies at CES were surprisingly sanguine about the prospect of the headphone jack disappearing from Apple's most popular product. Most of them, after all, also sell wireless models, and there remains the prospect of Lightning-compatible headphones as a new avenue to explore.

Petition: 'Keep the standard headphone jack'

A number of Apple fans have gone further in their scepticism, going so far as to start a petition demanding that Apple reconsider the plan.
"If the rumours are true, the new iPhone 7 will have a non-standard, proprietary headphone jack - making every pair of headphones on earth useless," the petition reads. "Not only will this force iPhone users to dole out additional cash to replace their hi-fi headphones, it will singlehandedly create mountains of electronic waste - that likely won't get recycled."
The petition set itself a goal of 200,000 signatures, and passed that shortly before time of writing: it's presently on 204,303. So there is some weight of feeling behind this. What do you think?

The original 'no headphone jack' rumour

In late 2015, the Japanese-language site Mac Otakara first reported on a rumour that the iPhone 7 won't get a headphone port at all, enabling Apple to shave a further millimetre from the device's thickness.
As we wrote at the time, this would have consequences. It wouldn't rule out headphone use entirely, but it would restrict it considerably. Users would have three options: wireless Bluetooth headphones; newly designed headphones that connect via the Lightning port; or an adaptor, which would probably be overpriced.
The iPhone is very much the iPod of its day, and music is a big part of its appeal, making this a big gamble in order to make an extremely thin phone even thinner. This would be even more unpopular than the removal of USB ports from the 12-inch MacBook. Is Apple really this obsessed with thinness?

Lightning-connected Apple Earpods & Wireless Earpods

If Apple doesn't include a 3.5mm headphone jack in the iPhone 7, it's going to need to ship the phone with new Earpods. According to 9To5Mac, the iPhone 7 will have Lightning-connected Earpods instead, and Apple is also said to be working on wireless Earpods as an alternative.
The wireless Earpods, which are likely to be created with help from the team from Beats Electronics, which Apple acquired in 2014, are expected to be so completely wireless that they won't even have a cable that connects the earpieces together.
And instead of EarPods, they could be called 'AirPods,' a name that Apple has already registered the trademark for.
AirPods may not come cheap - they'll be a premium alternative to EarPods according to the report, and could be around the £200 mark.

iPhone 7 design rumours: Apple could keep the headphone jack, but make it slimmer

Apple was not able to announce, in September, that the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are the thinnest iPhones ever. In fact, they are a tiny bit thicker than their respective predecessors, because they had to squeeze in the components to power 3D Touch and some extra-thick aluminium reinforcement around the most bend-prone areas.
For the iPhone 7, therefore, we suspect that the company may like to trim a few millimetres. One way it can do this - and a clue that thinness is still on its designers' minds - is a newly granted patent, number 9,142,908, for a cut-down headphone connector.
If you look around the edge of your current iPhone, you'll see that the headphone aperture appears to be the external factor on exactly how much Apple can thin down the device. The headphone port is bigger, from top to bottom, than the Lightning port, bigger than the speaker grill, marginally bigger than the volume buttons (which could easily be cut down if necessary). It's an obvious target for miniaturisation.
Apple's solution to this is a "Low profile male connector", which sounds a bit like someone who isn't very good at dating but in this case means a D-shaped headphone port. Instead of being round, the headphone connector has a segment lopped off so it takes up slightly fewer precious millimetres.

iPhone 7 design rumours: Buttonless design

In mid October, Piper Jaffrey analyst Gene Munster (who is notorious for his Apple Television predictions, which have so far proved to be inaccurate) has suggested that the iPhone 7 won't have a Home button, thanks to the new 3D Touch technology found in the iPhone 6s display.
"3D Touch may provide Apple with a way to eliminate the home button on the phone and use the additional space to make the screen bigger or the device smaller," he said. "One barrier to this could be Touch ID, which is integrated into the home button currently. Apple would need to move the Touch ID reader to potentially the side of the phone to remove the home button."
As we discuss later in this article, an Apple patent has revealed that the company is investigating ways to build the Touch ID sensor into the screen itself, so Munster's theory doesn't seem implausible, but as proven with his Apple television predictions, Munster isn't always right... even he says that the odds of a buttonless iPhone 7 are 50%.

iPhone 7 design rumours: Could we even get a thicker chassis? (Probably not.)

We expect the iPhone 7 to be thinner, as explained above, but a lot of users feel that the iPhones have already reached the peak of useful thinness - in the sense that reducing the thickness of the devices any further is going to compromise on qualities such as physical robustness without offering any real benefits in terms of portability. It's even possible that the iPhone 7 could be a bit thicker, if Apple feels it can use this change to incorporate useful new features. We think this is unlikely, but let's run with the theory as a thought experiment.
One reason why the iPhone 7 may be thicker than the iPhone 6s, for instance, would be so that it can feature what Apple calls "sidewall displays".
Apple has published a patent relating to such displays, hinting that a future iPhone could feature a display that extends on to the sides of the device (or a slim second display sitting on the side of the device). This could give access to the slide-to-unlock functionality, music player controls, messaging readout, caller ID, system controls and more.

iPhone 7 design rumours: Non-metal body

The Weibo source who spills the beans on Apple's waterproofing tests in our new features section also reckons that the iPhone 6s & 6s Plus will be the last iPhones to be made of metal. The iPhone 7 will have a chassis made of something else.
But made of what? We don't know. Although liquid metal, ceramics, plastics and sapphire have all been thrown around as possibilities. We find it odd that Apple would ditch its metal design so soon after upgrading to 7000-series aluminium, but radical design changes cannot be ruled out for a full-number iPhone update, and as mentioned above a report from Business Korea in February seems to suggest that ceramic is indeed a possibility.

iPhone 7 design rumours: Curved wraparound screen

We're into the realm of patents here, which we would generally warn readers means we're talking about developments that could easily end up appearing in a shipped product several years down the line or not appearing at all - Apple, like most tech companies, routinely applies for far more patents than it's ever going to use. But this one has actually been granted (it was applied for a few years back) so it could be reasonably close to reality.
Patent 9,146,590 refers to an "electronic device with wrap around display". And essentially it describes a curved screen that allows for more screen elements to be displayed without making the device significantly bigger. (Remember that the illustrations rarely represent what the designer has in mind. In theory the display could wrap entirely around the device, or at least extend over one edge like the Note Edge.)
While the patent talks about a "flexible display assembly", it's important to note that this isn't a patent for a bendable screen: the flexible portion of the display is attached to the interior surface of the curved transparent housing, which "provides a rigid support structure that prevents deformation".
This patent, like the wraparound display patent mentioned in the new featuressection, was spotted by Patently Apple.

iPhone 7 design rumours: The flexible iPhone

If we can return to the subject of patents, here's one that's pretty leftfield. We don't expect this to appear in the next generation of iPhone, but it's an intriguing insight into the design directions Apple is considering - or choosing to pretend it's considering.
Apple was recently awarded a patent for 'Flexible electronic devices', covering both flexible device bodies on the exterior and flexible components inside.
"A flexible electronic device may include a flexible display, a flexible housing and one or more flexible internal components configured to allow the flexible electronic device to be deformed," the patent explains.
That really would be a bold riposte to Bendgate: transforming it from a bug to a feature, in effect (even though, as we've repeatedly pointed out, the iPhone 6 Plus is hardly unusual in its susceptibility to strenuous bending). The iPhone would bend, the screen would bend, the battery inside would bend, everything would be fine.
It's still hard to see exactly what this would gain us, though, as opposed to the converse rumour (discussed further down this section) holding that Apple will beef up the iPhone 7's durability by using the 7000 Series aluminium alloy from the Apple Watch Sport.

iPhone 7 design rumours: Samsung to make iPhone 7's flexible display

According to the latest reports, Samsung Display is set to make flexible OLED displays for the iPhone 7. The rumour stems from claims that Samsung is reaching out to display tech companies in South Korea that they're hoping will lend a hand with building the displays, as the order from Apple will be huge.
Samsung may even be intending to invest billions in an new factory in which it'll manufature the displays.
At present, iPhones use LCD displays, but the Apple Watch uses a flexible OLED so it's certainly possible that Apple intends to bring the tech to the iPhone. We're not talking flexible in the same way as the patent above, though. It'll simply mean that the screen could curve around the design of the iPhone 7 more accurately, hinting further at an edge-to-edge display. It'll also likely be used to improve 3D Touch.

iPhone 7 design rumours: Touch ID built into the screen

In the continuing march of miniaturisation, one of the elements of the iPhone design that's proved resistant to shrinkage is the bezel below the screen - it can't get much smaller than it already is because it needs to house the Home button. Which is why a recurring theory is that Apple will extend the screen down past the Home button, or even incorporate the Touch ID sensor that lives in the recent iPhones' Home button into the touchscreen.
Technology that would facilitate such a development was recently announced by a biometric R&D company called Sonavation.
"Sonavation," the firm declares, "has reached an industry milestone by successfully developing and bonding an ultrasound biometric sensor which is compatible with Corning Gorilla Glass, providing a high-resolution 3D fingerprint image."
This would enable Apple (which is known to use Gorilla Glass in its iPhones, even if the supplier is apparently not permitted to say this publicly) to run the screen vertically edge-to-edge, with no cut-out for the Home button. The Home button could occupy the same position but appear only when needed, much like the software keyboard; and the technology for Touch ID would be bonded to the underside of the screen at the appropriate point.
Last year Apple filed a patent that appeared to back up the theory that it's looking into ideas like this. Patent application number 20150036065, for "a  fingerprint sensor... incorporated in a display stack in an electronic device", was filed by a number of Apple's engineers in April 2014 and published recently. Here are some of the accompanying illustrations (although you should bear in mind that patent images are almost universally ugly, and shouldn't bear much resemblance to what the finished design would look like):
We're still not completely sure what this design would achieve, since (as you can see in the iPhone illustration in Fig. 1) it doesn't even do away with the Home button, and therefore doesn't increase the amount of screen area.
And we've not been blown away by the reliability of the Touch ID sensor on the iPhone 5s, which seems to be hyper-sensitive to any quantity of grease sitting on the Home button. (Granted, the 6s and 6s Plus sensors seem more reliable, as well as faster.) Given how smudged an iPhone screen can get, this seems like it could be even worse, even before you factor in potential complications of embedded the sensor within the screen elements.
In other words, this seems like a long shot, at least for now.

iPhone 7 design rumours: Sapphire glass...

Apple is already using sapphire in the display of the Apple Watch, and it's possible that the company is now ready to import this material into its smartphone lin-up. Sapphire glass is more durable than Gorilla Glass, so could be an ideal material to use for the bigger display.
Apple was backing a Sapphire plant in Arizona - run by GT Advanced Technologies - that could have been used to manufacture 200 million 5-inch iPhone displays per year, according to reports. But that company has now been declared bankrupt and was unable to meet Apple's demands.
There could be a further twist, however. New reports suggest that long-term Apple supplier Foxconn is gearing up to build its own sapphire plant in Asia, and could be able to take GT Advanced Technologies' place.
Foxconn's planned plant in Taiwan will cost it $2.6bn to set up, but could give it a huge advantage as companies jostle to be involved in the production of the next iPhone.

iPhone 7 design rumours: ...or super-hardened 'Project Phire' Gorilla Glass

Sapphire glass sounds nice, but don't write off Gorilla Glass (the material used on current iPhones) just yet.
Corning, the company that makes Gorilla Glass, has responded to the looming threat of Sapphire glass. It announced a new development at the start of February 2015: an ultra-hardened composite material that at this point is known by the name Project Phire.
At an investor meeting, James Clappin, president of Corning Glass Technologies, explained how the firm expects to beat sapphire: "We told you last year that sapphire was great for scratch performance but didn't fare well when dropped. So we created a product that offers the same superior damage resistance and drop performance of Gorilla Glass 4 with scratch resistance that approaches sapphire."
Cnet has the full story.

iPhone 7 design rumours: Liquidmetal chassis

Liquidmetal is also said to be under consideration as a material for the chassis, because it's more durable than aluminium: a smaller quantity of this material can be used to achieve the same degree of strength as the metal used for Apple's current iPhones. This would enable Apple to keep the bigger iPhone light and thin, despite the bigger screen.
(But is Apple bothered about device strength any more? Device strength may have been on Apple's mind before the iPhone 6s launch, following the 'Bendgate' controversy that afflicted the iPhone 6 Plus, but 7000-series aluminium and reinforced sides have made the new iPhones almost unbendable.)
Plus, removing the bezels in the bigger iPhone to create an edge-to-edge display would mean Apple could introduce a bigger display without the need to increase the overall size of the iPhone too much.
It's also possible that Apple will bring some other elements of the technology used in the Apple Watch to the iPhone 7. For example, the Apple Watch's display can detect finger pressure, so the iPhone 7's display (or perhaps just a portion of it) could be capable of doing the same.

iPhone 7 rumours: New features

There's a lot more to the iPhone 7 than screen size, of course. What new features can we expect to see?

iPhone 7 could 'dry itself by shooting water out of its speakers'

One of the most-read articles on Macworld is a tutorial discussing ways of drying out an iPhone that's got wet: it's a distressing, and distressingly common, thing to happen to a device that costs several hundred pounds and contains important, sensitive and possibly unrecoverable data.
For this reason readers and pundits frequently speculate on the possibility that future iPhones will be waterproof. Indeed, the most recent generation of iPhone models are the most waterproof yet; but we still wouldn't be pleased if the iPhone 6s fell in a paddling pool.
A patent published on 12 November suggests a radical new solution to the water logging issue: a mechanism whereby the iPhone can dry itself by pumping water - or other liquid - out through its speaker grills.
Patent application 20150326959, wonderfully, is called LIQUID EXPULSION FROM AN ORIFICE.
"The embodiments described herein are directed to an acoustic module that is configured to remove all or a portion of a liquid that has accumulated within a cavity of the acoustic modules," the patent's summary reads.
The concept is centred around modules within the speaker cavities that can be made more or less hydrophobic, depending on the charge applied to them: when liquid is detected, charges would be applied across the various modules in such a way that the liquid would be moved across the modules and ultimately expelled from the cavity.
We love the idea almost as much as the name of the patent, but as with most of the more interesting patents we hear about, it's unlikely to bear fruit in a real shipped product for a little while.

iPhone 7 new features: Self-healing ports

One solution to the waterproofing conundrum used on rival smartphones has been small removable caps that sit over the ports that are vulnerable to water. But these tend to be fiddly, and a bit ugly: not very Apple. What about if the ports were covered, but you didn't need to take anything out before plugging in your headphone or charging cable?
This sounds more sci-fi than R&D, but a patent application published on 10 December 2015 shows that Apple has been looking at the possibility of using port seals that can be pierced by a male plug connector, and then heal themselves back to waterproof integrity after the connector is removed.
Patent application 20150357741, called ELECTRONIC DEVICE WITH HIDDEN CONNECTOR, describes "a self-healing elastomer applied over one or more external electronic connectors" that may "provide environmental protection for the connector and the electronic device".
The plug is forced through the elastomer seal whenever a connection is needed.
"Electronic probes may temporarily penetrate the self-healing elastomer to mate with the electronic connector," the application explains. "After removal of the probes the self-healing elastomer may elastically reform and self-heal."
Self-healing materials are currently used in a variety of products, such as smartphone cases and screen protectors, so this isn't quite as fanciful a concept as it might sound to the uninitiated. We haven't been particularly impressed by such products thus far, but part of the problem is aesthetic: when you've got a scratch on your iPhone's screen protector you would expect the self-healing mechanism to remove the scratch so effectively that you can't see it was ever there, but our experience suggests that isn't practical with current technology. But Apple's concept only needs the self-healing to be effective in a crude, broad sense - making the aperture waterproof again, without it having to look perfect.
For those who are interested in materials sciences, here's what Apple's application has to say about the self-healing elastomer:
"[0039] Self-healing elastomer 315 may be a polymer with elastic properties such as a low Young's modulus and a high failure strain. In further embodiments, self-healing elastomer 315 may comprise a silicone material, also known as a polymerized siloxane. In some embodiments, the polymerized siloxane may be mixed inorganic-organic polymers with the chemical formula [R2SiO]n, where R is an organic group such as methyl, ethyl, or phenyl. In these embodiments the silicone material may comprise an inorganic silicon-oxygen backbone with organic side groups attached to the silicon atoms. In further embodiments self-healing elastomer 315 may include one or more materials that change its color. In some embodiments self-healing elastomer 315 may approximately match a color of housing 150. Other formulations may be used without departing from the invention."

iPhone 7 new features: Waterproofing - and official waterproofing this time

And while we're on the subject of waterproofing...
It's been claimed on the Chinese micro-blogging site Weibo that Apple is testing out waterproof designs for the iPhone 7. (Mac Otakara, which picked up on the claims, says that dustproofing is also being looked at, although we can't spot any mention of this in the original posts. Perhaps it's an issue related to translation.) This is reportedly and unsurprisingly at a very early stage - "volume production is very low!", the (translated) post points out - but is being assessed ahead of work starting on prototype designs.
The claims remain just that at this point, of course, since we have only the word of a Weibo user to back this up. (A user who cites 15 years of experience in integrated circuit design and has - a presumably respectable - 32,904 fans on the site, but still.) If they are true, though, it's likely that more leaks and evidence will emerge in the months to come, and we'll update this article with any developments.
What we're talking here, at any rate, is proper official waterproofing, since brave early buyers have discovered that the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are themselves much better at dealing with submersion than previous Apple devices. Apple evidently doesn't feel quite confident enough about this upgrade to name it as a new feature (which is odd, since this would be a big step forward to boast about). We saw similar reticence with the Apple Watch, which Apple would only claim as splash-proof but appears to be basically waterproof in any reasonable conditions.
Whether the iPhone 7, then, will be announced as Apple's first officially waterproof phone (regardless of its true capabilities) remains to be seen. Some commenters to the original Weibo post, indeed, predicted that waterproofing wouldn't be seen until the iPhone 7s… but now we're really getting ahead of ourselves.

iPhone 7 new features: Wet finger support

Even if Apple doesn't go for a fully waterproof design, we could see Apple introduce a new feature that would allow you to use your touchscreen with wet fingers. Apple supplier Japan Display has revealed that it has developed new display technology that can operate with wet fingers, something that most smartphone screens are currently unable to do.
But this technology could be taken even further if Apple does indeed make it's phone completely waterproof, as it could allow the touchscreen to be used underwater for capturing photographs of sealife, for example.

iPhone 7 new features: Wireless charging

It's a perennial rumour for upcoming Apple devices, but wireless charging could be a reality this time around: it didn't arrive with the iPhone 6s as some had predicted, but was introduced to the Apple Watch as inductive charging.
As iMore's Rene Ritchie points out, inductive charging hasn't been practical for the iPhone in previous years because the technology available at the time didn't work through an aluminium backplate (the Apple Watch, which does offer wireless charging, has a ceramic back). But this could all be about to change in the near(ish) future. In July Qualcomm announced a wireless charging breakthrough that does work through metal. This came too late for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, but the technology may appear in a subsequent generation of Apple smartphone.
It has to be said that, whatever the reasoning behind it, Apple is behind a lot its rivals in this respect. The Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge both offer wireless charging, as does the Google Nexus 6 and the Motoroloa Droid Turbo, but the tech has been available in a handful of phones since around 2010. (Electric toothbrushes have had it since the 1990s.)
Indeed, there have been inductive charging cases available for the iPhone for some time, and nearly two years ago we were talking about the technology appearing in what we were then referring to as the iPad 5: iPad 5 patent: inductive Smart Cover contains battery.
Wireless charging sounds amazing, but we should stress that at the moment inductive charging has a very short range; so you wouldn't be able to just sit at your desk and have your iPhone (in your pocket) charge from the plug several feet away. Rather, you'd place the device on a wired mat. Convenient, but not quite as space-age as it might have sounded when we talked about 'wireless charging'.
The artist Yasser Farahi, whose work appears lower down in the images and videos section, has come up with a mocked-up advert for this feature:

iPhone 7 new features: Anti-overheating tech

Some iPhone 6s users have been complaining that their Touch ID fingerprint sensors have been overheating, causing the home button to become "burning hot," but that should soon be a thing of the past if Apple's latest patent is anything to go by.
On 13 October, a new Apple patent was published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office that describes a method of automatically capping its power usage in order to cool down. It would use a built-in temperature sensor that would monitor the heat of the iPhone and adjust its power usage accordingly.
This tech could well make its way into the iPhone 7 in order to address the overheating issues.

iPhone 7 new features: Gesture passcode

There was a small amount of mild irritation when iOS 9 launched and Apple started to ask us to set up 6-digit passcodes on new iPhones (instead of 4-digit ones) by default. Our tutorial explaining how to go back to 4 digits has been quite popular, but we should probably point out that improved device security isn't an entirely terrible thing.
Meanwhile, the next iPhone - or one a few generations down the line, since we're talking patents again - could entirely transform the way we unlock our devices. Apple has been granted a patent for a gesture-based passcode system.
The patent - number 9,147,058 - is labelled "Gesture entry techniques", and describes its claims thus:
"The present embodiments relate to the use of security measures based on non-alphanumeric inputs that are user configurable (as opposed to purely biometric inputs) to control access to restricted information or functions. For example, access to confidential information may be based on a gesture input via a touch sensitive input device, such as a touch sensitive display or touchpad. A gesture may be used to invoke one or more authentication screens, such as, a gesture entry screen, a gesture replay screen, and a gesture re-entry verification screen, for accessing confidential information or functions that may be otherwise unavailable."
We've seen this before in Android world, but it would be a nice option for iOS users. Apple's been on the case with this since 2012, but has finally been granted the patent, so we're hopeful that it could make an appearance at some point in the near future - whether touted as a feature of the iPhone 7, or as a software update as part of iOS 10, or as a feature that relies on both.

iPhone 7 new features: No SIM card…

Will Apple ditch SIM cards?
A report in the Financial Times [paywall] in late July suggests that smartphones with physical SIM cards may soon be a thing of the past, as Apple and other smartphone manufacturers come closer to agreeing a standard for a built-in software/electronic SIM.
The FT predicts that this project is more likely to bear fruit in the 2016 generation of iPhones than the ones released in autumn 2015; this year's iPhones (the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, perhaps) are more likely to come with an Apple-branded hardware SIM like the iPad Air 2. The Apple SIM (which we discuss in the next section) works with multiple networks, offering many of the same benefits as a software SIM but requiring less wrangling with the networks.

iPhone 7 new features: …or a pre-installed 'Apple SIM'

The same source who told AppleInsider about the RAM increase (in the specs section, above) also reckons that the iPhone 7 is likely to come with a pre-installed Apple SIM.
"[The Apple SIM], which also made its debut with the iPad Air 2, allows consumers to sign up for mobile data plans from any participating carrier directly from the Settings app without long-term contracts and to switch providers at any time," says the site.
This is unlikely to be a popular move with the carriers, although it may be a hit with users. Read more about the Apple SIM in this article:

iPhone 7 new features: Dynamic Home button

This one sounds a little like the 'joystick Home button' rumour we look at below, but is rather more plausible.
Apple has published a new patent for a Home that is sensitive to gestures: you'd be able to swipe across it, or lean a thumb in one direction to scroll the screen of a game, for example, that way. 
As BusinessInsider puts it:
"The patent details an iOS home button capable of detecting various gestures along with the force of each touch. In other words, imagine Force Touch [see below], albeit applied to the home button as opposed to the device's display."
It certainly sounds less damage-prone than the 'pop-out' Home button we heard about earlier this year, and which we find very hard to imagine appearing in the iPhone 7. Then again, plenty of pundits have been speculating about Apple doing away with the Home button entirely - as is the case on a number of Android smartphones - and installing Touch ID on the screen itself. Colour us unconvinced.

iPhone 7 new features: 'Joystick'-style Home button for gamers

This rumour is pretty far out there, and we're not sure it's realistic to expect this to appear in any Apple devices for a while yet. But it's definitely an interesting idea.
Essentially the concept is this: the Home button on the iPhone 7 would be able to 'pop up' on a little spring and turn into a sort of mini-joystick for playing games. There are plenty of iOS games that would benefit from a hardware controller (this explains the enduring popularity of Bluetooth gaming controller accessories) and this sounds like a lot of fun.
But gamers remain only one section of the iPhone's audience, and it seems like a risky idea to potentially compromise the resilience of everyone's iPhone Home button (which has famously been very prone to breakage in the past) for a feature that would benefit only some users.
A wacky idea that we're not convinced by, then - but one that is backed up by an Apple patent: application 20150015475, originally filed on 9 July 2013 but only published by the US Patent Office on 15 January 2015. So somebody at Cupertino thinks the idea is worth a thought.
(Bear in mind, however, that Apple often patents ideas that it doesn't actually build - to cover itself for future changes of plan, to avoid patent trolling, and perhaps even to mislead rivals about its direction.)

iPhone 7 new features: New charger

In August 2014, rumours about a new iPhone charger emerged, suggesting that the USB part of the charger could be reversible, just like the Lightning connector.
A video showing what's believed to be a new charger for a future with a reversible fully reversible USB Lightning cable emerged on the web earlier in 2014. It shows the USB being plugged in to the adapter both ways, in the same way that the Lightning connector itself is reversible.

iPhone 7 new features: iOS 10

iOS 10 is also likely to introduce new features at a software level. Among the features we're hoping to see in iOS 10: improved parental controls and group FaceTime calls.
We should get our first glimpse of iOS 10 complete with plenty of clues about future iPhones and iPads during WWDC 2016 in June, where Apple will show off what it's been working on when it comes to software. You can find out more about what to expect from iOS 10 in our iOS 10 rumour round-up.
Interestingly, Apple has revealed new features in iOS 9.3, which is already available as a public beta and should be released in its final form soon. iOS 9.3 includes new Night Mode, new 3D Touch shortcuts, new tactic feedback and more. Read more in our iOS 9.3 article.

iPhone 7 new features: Apple patents

Looking closer at Apple's patent portfolio, we can come up with some further iPhone 7 features that could well be on the cards for 2015. Face recognition could be used to unlock the device, or the entire display of the iPhone 7 could be a Touch ID fingerprint sensor, eliminating the need for a Home button and making room for a larger display.
Take a look at our Apple patent round-up for more features that Apple is investigating for future products.

iPhone 7 rumours: Specifications

It's time to get a bit more technical. Let's talk iPhone 7 specs.

iPhone 7 specs rumours: LiFi

The latest rumour about the iPhone 7's specs relates to LiFi, a new wireless standard that boasts 100x faster download speeds than conventional WiFi connections. LiFi uses visible light communication (VLC) instead of radio waves like conventional WiFi routers.

iPhone 7 specs rumours: Stacked battery cells

One rumour holds that Apple will take the battery developments it deployed in the12-inch MacBook - whereby contoured, layered battery units are stacked inside the chassis in order to take up every possible inch of space - and use these to squeeze more battery volume inside the iPhone 7.
(According to Wired's write-up, Apple actually claims to adjust its battery contours on a machine-by-machine basis, by photographing the inside of the chassis and modifying the battery stack to fit all the tiny imperfections - which, if it's true, is amazing.)
Apple could even, thanks to the new battery technology, make more radical changes to the overall design of the iPhone, because its engineers no longer to base their work on a fixed battery shape; although the idea of Jony Ive coming up with aBlackBerry Passport-esque square design at this point in the iPhone's history is a little off-putting.
Smartphone battery life is one of those things that everyone says is important, and once again Apple will hear many requests for improved battery life in the iPhone 7 - but you do wonder how much of a compromise the average Apple fan would be willing to make in return. What if, in order to achieve a superb battery life, the iPhone 7 was twice the weight, or cost significantly more? What if the screen was less powerful or the processor scaled back?
Mirroring these thoughts somewhat, Jony Ive discussed battery life briefly in an interview with the Financial Times' 'How to spend it' supplement recently. And he gave fairly heavy hints that Apple doesn't think battery life is a high enough priority to make compromises in other areas worth it.
"Talking of performance, when the issue of the frequent need to recharge the iPhone is raised, [Ive] answers that it's because it's so light and thin that we use it so much and therefore deplete the battery. With a bigger battery it would be heavier, more cumbersome, less 'compelling'."
It's possible that will see conservative increases in battery life, as we did with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. But those advances were feasible because the bodies of those devices were larger, and they could therefore accommodate larger batteries. And it sounds like Apple won't be sacrificing portability to make the iPhone 7 have a significantly better battery life.
Sorry, everyone. Still, cheer up: as the Express reports, Apple was recently granted a patent that would allow it to embed solar panels under the screen of future iPhones, thereby doing away with the need to charge them up at all. No, it's not going to appear in the iPhone 7, but some day…

iPhone 7 specs rumours: What does the new battery pack tell us about iPhone 7 battery life?

In December 2015 Apple gave its critics an early Christmas present by unveiling a battery pack for the iPhone 6 and 6s that is, without wishing to be unpleasant and apologies for the language, pretty gosh-darn ugly. (To be fair, we've not yet got our hands on a review sample, so we may be won over by its feel, performance, usability and so on.)
In a single surprising step the company put its famed sense of taste and design nous in doubt (coming after the suspect decision to put the charge port for the Magic Mouse 2 on its bottom), and simultaneously reminded everyone that iPhone battery life is generally felt to be subpar.
Is this a tacit acknowledgement that battery life is a problem for the iPhone range? Can we therefore expect the iPhone 7 to see improvements in this department as Apple looks for a more full-time and less bulky solution to the issue?
We might (battery technology is improving all the time), but this probably isn't the mea culpa some iPhone users were looking for. When discussing the new case, Tim Cook emphasised that it wasn't for everyone (at £80 you'd hope not), and that he felt that even those who did need the case would only use it in relatively extreme scenarios when power wouldn't be available for a long time: when hiking, for example.
I would agree that Apple is aware that battery life is a concern for a lot of its customers, but it knew that long before it released its battery pack. And battery life remains a question of compromises, such that increasing it always necessitates either making a device thicker, heavier or more expensive, or choosing not to make it thinner, lighter or cheaper when you could have done.
I still believe that most people would rather have a thin, relatively cheap iPhone than a fat, more expensive iPhone with an extra two hours of battery life. And now anyone who would be willing to make that compromise now has an officially sanctioned alternative: spend the extra money, make your phone fatter and uglier, and get the battery pack.
In a crazy sort of way, the ugliness of the battery pack almost makes sense as a demonstration of what drastically improved battery life actually looks like. "You want twice the battery life? Even if that means your iPhone has a massive lump on the back? Yeah, DIDN'T THINK SO."

iPhone 7 specs rumours: iPhone 7 to get 3GB of RAM

Unusually reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has predicted that the iPhone 7 Plus - but not the iPhone 7 - will feature 3GB of RAM, according to AppleInsider.
We weren't expecting an upgrade in this department just yet; three generations of iPhone (from the iPhone 5 to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus) came with 1GB of RAM, and this was only bumped to 2GB last year for the 6s and 6s Plus. We expected at least one more generation with 2GB, and potentially two.
Still, Kuo is right more often than he's wrong, and the idea of offering an additional differentiator for the Plus model is appealing. (Other than a larger screen, the 6s Plus offers longer battery life than the 6s and optical image stabilisation for video. It's debatable whether this is enough to justify the extra £80 to £90.)

iPhone 7 specs rumours: Intel LTE chips

According to new reports, Intel has 1,000 people working to get its 7360 LTE chip ready for the 2016 iPhone. Currently, Apple uses Qualcomm's 9X45 LTE chips in all of its iPhones, so this could be a huge deal for Intel.

iPhone 7 specs rumours: A10 processor could be six-core... possibly

A Weibo-sourced rumour, this one - and one that requires even more pinches of salt that the chap who told us about the waterproofing tests. (The Weibo user we're going to quote has just 1,688 fans, compared to the 32,904 who follow our previous source.)
Be healthily sceptical, then, when we report the prediction that the A10 processor in the iPhone 7 will have six cores - a huge leap after sticking with dual-core systems-on-a-chip from the iPhone 4s to the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. It goes without saying that this would create an absolute beast of a smartphone, but whether Apple would consider such gains worth the undoubted compromises and costs required to achieve this - we can't say we're convinced.
Incidentally, Cult of Mac also reckons that Apple is already ordering supplies of the A10, 10 months ahead of the expected launch of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
"Apple has placed LCD driver orders with Synaptics for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, indicating that the touch and display driver (TDDI) single-chip solutions its been developing in-house aren't quite ready for prime time," writes the site.
Further reports have emerged seemingly confirming the rumour that Samsung will be cut out of the processing supply deal for the iPhone 7's A10 chip, losing the entire contract to rival TSMC.
Samsung and TSMC shared the deal for the A9 processor in the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, but a minor scandal (promptly christened, inevitably, 'batterygate') developed when it emerged that devices running TSMC's chip (which should in principle have been less efficient as a result of being made on a 16nm process instead of a 14nm one) were fractionally faster and had slightly better battery life. Some analysts believe that this minor victory will result in TSMC getting to make all of the A10s.
Indeed, this rumour is sufficiently credible for one analyst firm to lower its stock price target for Samsung - its chip supply business is vital to the health of the company as a whole, and the iPhone gig is clearly one of the biggest and most lucrative in the industry.

iPhone 7 specs rumours: Camera

It's possible that the iPhone 7's cameras will see another bump in megapixel rating, after the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus went from 8Mp to 12Mp (rear-facing) and 1.2Mp to 5Mp (front-facing). But we tend to think that Apple prefers to change the way its iPhone cameras work rather than focusing on their specs. And if a patent published in March (but applied for back in 2011) is any indicator, Apple is pondering a bold new camera miniaturisation technology based on what it calls "a light splitter cube".
"The cube splits the incident light into first, second, and third color components that emerge from the cube through a first face, a second face, and a third face of the cube, respectively," the patent explains. "First, second, and third image sensors are provided, each being positioned to receive a respective one of the color components that emerge from the first, second, and third faces of the cube."

iPhone 7 specs rumours: Storage capacity - The end of 16GB?

Each time the iPhones get updated we speculate about the possibility that Apple will boost storage: removing the 16GB baseline option and starting at 32GB. (At the moment, for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus at any rate, there is a curiously isolated 16GB model, a gap, and then the 64GB and 128GB models above. You can buy a 16GB and 64GB iPhone 6 and 6 Plus (no 128GB option any more), while the iPhone 5s comes in 16GB and 32GB.)
We're hopeful that this will finally happen with the iPhone 7, and we'd be glad to see the back of the 16GB storage tier, which we increasingly find unrealistically restrictive for the average user.
Many iPhone users find that 16GB isn't enough for their day-to-day needs, but the price jump up to 64GB (the 32GB models have been phased out) puts them off shelling out for more storage.

iPhone 7 specs: Screen size

What screen size will the iPhone 7 have? There are a number of competing theories.
Of the three smartphone screen sizes Apple currently sells, the 4.7 inches of the iPhone 6 appears to be the favourite among customers. The iPhone 6s Plus and its 5.5-inch screen strikes many people as too big; the 4-inch iPhone 5s seems too old-fashioned and titchy to many more. 4.7 inches may be the sweet spot for the average Apple fan.
But it seems unlikely that Apple will give up on its other screen sizes as easily as that. For one thing, there are definitely smartphone users out there who still value smaller devices: those with smaller hands, those who prefer to use their smartphone one-handed, people who just don't like change. (That last category includes the author of this article, to be quite candid. I wrote a little about the significance of very small alterations in the size and shape of smartphones in an article that I called The handbag theory.)

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