Bloomberg is reporting, citing Taiwanese newspaper Commercial Times, that Apple may delay the next iPhone — after it allegedly decided to tweak its design to feature a bigger 4.3-inch retina display screen.
We’d usually expect a new iPhone to appear around September. But this report, fuelled by comments from “unidentified people in the semiconductor industry”, suggests that Cook and co may have to push the release back to the end of the year.
The current iPhone features a 4-inch screen, so if this rumor’s to be believed — and it’s worth saying it should be taken with a large pinch of salt — then Apple’s phone is getting even larger. The delay would be a blow for Apple — but hardly serious if it could sneak it into the shops ahead of the holiday buying season.
Elsewhere, the report reiterates rumors that a cheaper version of the iPhone is expected to arrive in the third quarter of this year, with suppliers claiming that chips for the new devices began shipping in June. All in, there’s a lot of speculation here which may or may not turn out to be accurate — but it will certainly be interesting to see just how big that screen does end up. [Bloomberg]