Rumor: iPhone Pro – A High End, Super Expensive iPhone Is Coming This Year
Time for yet another Apple iPhone related rumor. Just a few weeks before Apple officially unveils the much talked about iPhone SE at a press event, we now have some speculated information regarding a new high-end smartphone Apple is reportedly planning.
Gone are the days when Apple enthusiasts across the globe waited for the company to launch a new, single replacement to a previous generation iPhone. Over the past few years, the company has moved on to release multiple versions of the iPhone to cater to a wider swathe of customers. This year too, the newfound tradition is likely to continue. According to a Forbes report, Apple could launch as many as four new variants of the iPhone – this year alone!
The first model that is rumored to arrive this month, is the 4-inch replacement to the iPhone 5s, the recently rechristened iPhone SE. A few months later, Apple might launch the updated versions of the existing iPhone 6S and the 6S Plus. These two devices, likely to be called the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus, would be topped by another model – which is rumored to be called the iPhone Pro. And the iPhone Pro is what we are talking about today.
The information about the iPhone Pro comes from MacRumors, who quotes Ming-Chi Kuo from KGI securities, a research firm that has a record of getting Apple related information almost always right. According to the MacRumors report, the iPhone 7 would get a 4.7-inch display, while the iPhone 7 Plus would get a 5.5-inch display. There are also speculations that the two devices would be water resistant. The talk of the town, however, is the iPhone 7 Pro would be basically a supercharged iPhone 7 Plus with a ton of high end features – including a new groundbreaking camera technology. Rumor has it that the iPhone Pro could feature a dual lens camera at the back. The huge leap in camera tech could be the result of Apple’s acquisition of LinX an imaging specialist firm that Cupertino purchased last year.
Note that everything you have read until this point is pure speculation. That said, if it does indeed turn out to be true, this approach would be a major change in Apple’s way of doing things. The company started off by cramming all the best features it possibly could into one single device and sell it in millions. This slightly changed when they came up with two versions of the iPhone in 2014 and continued the same trend last year. In 2016, with three different iPhone models being planned, several experts are worried about increased fragmentation within Apple’s own eco system.
Meanwhile, several experts have the opinion that Apple had to make the iPhone Pro a premium, expensive product to buy because it wants it to sell in lower volumes. This is partly because had it been a cheaper device, it would only strain Apple’s ability to churn out enough LinX lens modules. Maybe a year down the line, after they fix their supply constraints, the iPhone Pro could become slightly more affordable? But by then, you would already be staring at the iPhone 7s or the iPhone 7s Plus, won’t you?
So, what do you think about the iPhone Pro? Would you be interested in getting one?
[Image By Kelvinsong – Own work, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons]
