Mark Gurman and Debby Wu, Bloomberg:
Apple Inc. is preparing to release a trio of new smartphones later this year: the largest iPhone ever, an upgraded handset the same size as the current iPhone X and a less expensive model with some of the flagship phone’s key features.
And:
With a screen close to 6.5 inches, Apple’s big new handset will be one of the largest mainstream smartphones on the market. While the body of the phone will be about the same size as the iPhone 8 Plus, the screen will be about an inch larger thanks to the edge-to-edge design used in the iPhone X. (Apple is unlikely to refer to the phone as a phablet, a term popularized by Samsung.)
I remember agonizing over the huge size of the iPhone 6 Plus, worrying about it fitting in my pockets, being too large for my hands. I switched and have never looked back. I no longer think of the Plus form factor as large. To me, it has become the new normal.
The thought of the same footprint, but with a nicer display than my 8 Plus, and more pixels, well that’s irresistible. The obvious hitch will be the price-tag.
A 256GB iPhone X is priced at $1,149. I can only imagine that a 256GB iPhone X Plus will be about $100 more (the difference in price between the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus), or $1,249. How far can Apple push that price ceiling?
My completely unsubstantiated guess is that the x doesn’t stay at 1k, but comes down to $900, and the X+ takes over as the new $1000 model. That way they will have a solid continuum of base model price points in $100 increments (right now theres a $200 gap between the base X and the base 8+).
nah, not my cup of tea. I regularily play around with the „normal“ sized 6s of my significant other, and everytime come back thinking that it‘s just a little bit too big for my taste (and I do have big enough hands to fully use the screen of an X with one hand).
It‘s a pity that the new SE is only rumored to have a 2 years old cpu and won‘t get any design-love (although to me it‘s still the prettiest iphone in the current lineup), no water resistance, no neural engine…
I can understand that a lot of people like the big form factor – especially those for which the phone is their primary computer. But I can‘t help but think that apple is leaving a lot of money on the table by not having a small high-end phone in their lineup.
I really hope that the watch gets more capable before phones get too big. I could nearly live without a phone between my watch and my ipad, I‘m mostly just missing the camera.