Friday March 29th, 2024
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The Next Wave Of Smartphones: Tiny iPhones And Giant Samsungs

Rumour has it that the next addition to the iPhone line will launch soon, this time with a modest screen size.

Staff Writer

Rejoice, iPhone fans with little hands! Those of you who skipped over the last two generations of Apple’s industry-defining phones because you thought there was just no way for your stubby little fingers to manage the 6 and 6S lines of iPhones may be in luck. 

If rumours are to be believed (and what fun is it if you don’t believe?), Apple is setting up to unveil a new addition to its smartphone line with a handset for those of us who aren’t quite so well endowed in the carpal department. An iPhone 5SE has been purported across every corner of the Internet as having the same 4-inch display as the iPhone 5 and 5S, drastically smaller than the 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

The iPhone 5S with the 6 and 6 Plus
 

Apple is presumably looking to cater to iPhone fans looking for an update in speed and technology but who disagree with ‘bigger is better’ when it comes to phones. Rumours say that the 5SE will have the same A9 processor and M9 co-processor of the 6S and 6S Plus, giving the little guy a huge boost in performance and graphical abilities as compared to the 5S. The boost in processing power will account for a host of new features – an obvious camera update, Apple Pay capable NFC chip, live photos, and the Hey Siri always-on functionality are the most believable of the rumoured features. Some, more outlandish, theories say that the device will have curved edges à la Samsung Edge series.

The phone, as well as an updated iPad Air (whose rumours are a lot more mundane), are said to be revealed at an Apple event on March 15th, with a release date of March 18th. Releasing a device so soon after its announcement is unlike Apple, but since sales seem to have plateaued as of late, perhaps shaking things up is exactly what the most profitable company in the world needs to do to maintain momentum. 

Meanwhile, Apple’s archenemy and holder of the greatest smartphone market share, Samsung, is set to deliver an update in the forms of the S7 and S7 Edge just before the Mobile World Congress at an event on February 21st in Barcelona. A 5.5-inch screen on the S7 is said to be the only real cosmetic difference, accompanied by the requisite internal upgrades typical to these types of annual iterations. 

Personally, we were hoping for a little more pizzazz from these two; but, if the stories are true, it doesn’t seem that these events will be all that exciting. Gone are the days of frantically checking the live-blog of announcements for any morsel of information the second it was announced. But hey, there’s always another event right around the corner.