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New iPhone rumors are a dime a dozen, just this 1 is both counter-intuitive and yet makes plenty of sense in one case you think near information technology. A prominent analyst from KGI Securities — Ming-Chi Kuo — says that Apple is prepping a 4-inch iPhone to join the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus in Apple's lineup, and that it would supersede the existing iPhone 5s.

Past the time next October rolls around, the iPhone 5s will be three years old, and information technology'due south side by side in line to be axed if Apple's prior rail record is any indication. The four.7-inch iPhone 6s and 5.5-inch iPhone 6s Plus are each second-generation versions of what were the first larger-screen iPhones Apple brought to market. Designing a new, hopefully higher-terminate iv-inch model, as opposed to another side-grade like the plastic iPhone 5c, would cater to people all the same looking for a smaller handset that'southward like shooting fish in a barrel to hold in one hand.

This has been a perennial event particularly with regards to the Android market. Something I've never quite understood is the apparent stampede of Samsung, LG, Motorola, HTC, and other Android handset vendors to outdo each other with larger screen sizes while abandoning smaller-just-still-loftier-end phones entirely. Sony, Huawei, and ZTE have also gotten in on the fun. Numerous times over the years, I've asked visitor representatives about smaller-screen, but still powerful handsets that can exist used one-handed while holding onto a subway pole or a newborn with your other manus, only to be told betoken blank that journalists are the only people who ever ask about them, and that the market wants giant phones.

SwiftKey on iOS 8 on an iPhone 5S

SwiftKey on iOS 8 on an iPhone 5S

I'thousand certainly willing to believe that — I too build my ain PCs, and not anybody does that anymore either. And I myself am a phablet convert; I own an iPhone vi Plus right now and have my eye on the Nexus 6P. But if Apple can sell bazillions of iPhone 6 and 6s handsets with 4.7-inch screens and top-of-the-line A9 processors, why can't an Android vendor step upwards and do the same without crippling information technology with a midrange SoC and camera sensors? Time after time, we've been disappointed with promises of high-end specs across handsets like the Samsung Galaxy Alpha and the HTC One A9, but to find parts that aren't best-in-course once they're actually released. And hither on the iOS side, not but is Apple selling tons of 4.7-inch iPhones, only it's besides considering going back to 4 inches for an entirely new blueprint.

The report says that the new four-inch model may join Apple'southward lineup fifty-fifty before October 2016, and may show upwardly in the first half of the year — and not only that, only that information technology will have the same super-fast A9 processor equally the iPhone 6s. Information technology'll probably lack 3D Bear upon, but it will probable have a metal enclosure just like the higher-terminate models. Kuo says Apple could sell 20 to thirty million of this new 4-inch model past the end of the yr. The written report also said that a tentatively named iPhone 7 will come in the tertiary quarter as predicted, and that it volition feature an A10 processor, though if you ask me, that doesn't have a huge jump of logic to come upward with.