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For This Year's iPhone, Apple Is Ditching Lightning Connector and Home Button, But Embracing USB Type-C and Curved Display (wsj.com)
Apple has decided to adopt a flexible display for at least one model of the new iPhone, reports WSJ. From the report: People with direct knowledge of Apple's production plans said the Cupertino, Calif., company has decided to go ahead with the technology, and it will release a phone model using the OLED screens this year (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source). The technology allows manufacturers to bend screens in ways they couldn't previously -- such as by introducing a curve at the edge of the phone as in some Samsung models. However, once the phone is manufactured, the OLED screen can't be bent or folded by the user, at least with current technology. Using OLED displays would allow Apple to introduce a phone with a new look to fuel sales. They said Apple would introduce other updates including a USB-C port for the power cord and other peripheral devices instead of the company's original Lightning connector. The models would also do away with a physical home button, they said. Those updates would give the iPhone features already available on other smartphones.
*Taps mic*
*Clears throat*
I have a lot of money to spend on a device, since I only do so every 4 or 5 years.
Could some "brave" soul please take a break from curving displays, gluing batteries, and adding bling to their phones, and address my market segment?
I really want to give someone my money.
For it, you will need to build a device that:
- Has a user-swappable battery, preferably with an ultracap allowing hot replacement. It's not really a hard to do. - Is too thick. I want pundits to reel. I want trash talk. "What kind of fashionista would buy this?" - Lasts 48 hours on a charge most days, and cannot self-discharge within 16 hours with all radios active and CPU bouncing off the thermal governor - Speaks all radio protocols fluently, with dual sim support - Is IP67 - Has a barometer, thermometer, hygrometer, full IMU with a razor sharp compass, GPS and GLONASS - Has both USB-C and MicroUSB on the bottom - Has great speakers - Has 4gb or 6gb RAM, and the best CPU currently available - No onboard storage.. just two raid1 MicroSD card slots with a battery-backed memory buffer Name your price. Since I don't let carriers leach my money away on phone contracts, nor do I toss out my phone every year, I (and a sizable market of people like me) have a lot of money to spend on a truly flagship device.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Yeah, who copies whose designs again?
No kidding.
The only way Apple could be innovative with edge screens would be if they wrapped around to the back...
For me personally that feature is a negative, because there are times I purposely place my phone face down to avoid distraction of flashing notifications. When I want my phone to alert me of things, I place it face up [or on vibrate].
Removing Lightning would also significantly remove the lock-in factor and their large 3rd party peripherals advantage. Not only would people have to buy iStuff-compatible hardware for the third time in a row (which would most likely lose them some people), the new hardware would support Android phones on a hardware basis, making it quite easy for Google to just add support for the peripherals in Android. Suddenly all of those iPhone exclusive sound docks, car docks and whatever else become universal.
I frankly don't see that happening. Only thing I can see would be them bundling a USB-C cable and charger at the other end.
I think the wording on the WSJ article is unclear and the more likely scenario is that the iPhone will continue to have a Lightning port but that the power adapter will have a USB-C port, i.e., a USB-C to Lightning cable will replace the USB-A to Lightning cable.
This would allow iPhones to plug directly into MacBooks without buying a separate adapter (plus for Apple ecosystem) but require most everyone else to buy a new USB-A to Lightning connector (great for sales).
I don't know about the data rates over Lightning, but I'd guess it would be more likely that they could tweak that and get the much faster USB-C data speeds as a bonus. Backing up your phone would be much faster.