In Apple’s latest earnings call, CEO Tim Cook was suddenly equivocal about whether or not Apple would do an iPhone with a larger display.

“Our competitors have made some significant tradeoffs in many of these areas to ship a larger display,” Cook said on the earnings call. “We would not ship a larger display iPhone while these tradeoffs exist.”

What that hints is Apple doesn’t have a larger screen iPhone in its pipeline yet, but they’re working on one, without any of the tradeoffs of the competition. (What these tradeoffs actually are in Apple’s mind are anyone’s guess.)

A new analyst report suggests that this larger screen iPhone will be the iPhone 6, and it will land in summer of 2014. This year, we’ll just have to deal with an iPhone 5S in a bevy of peacock fan of different color options.

Peter Misek of Piper-Jefferies sent out a research note to clients today, saying that the iPhone 6 would launch with a larger screen making it more directly competitive with broader, beefier devices like the newly released Samsung Galaxy S4. According to Misek, it’s coming in June 2014.

As for what we can expect this year, Misek’s staying uncharacteristically safe in his predictions. He says we’ll see the iPhone 5S come in multiple colors, which is pretty much the consensus analyst opinion at this point and backed by reputable analysts like Ming-Chi Kuo (although Kuo believes the color iPhone will actually be the iPhone 5, which makes sense to me: it’s a good way to cheapen the production of the iPhone 5 to reach a mass audience while also giving it a new dose of sex appeal).

Misek also says that the iPhone 5S will have a fingerprint sensor under the home button, another rumor backed by Kuo. Naturally, there will also be an upgraded processor and better camera.

It’s true that Peter Misek is a complete bozo when it comes to predicting upcoming moves by Apple, but all of his analyst predictions grok this time with other things we’ve heard. Only time will tell, though.

Source: Financial Post

This post was written by John Brownlee from Cult of Mac.
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iOS is the most popular gaming platform in existence, and Apple has managed to create an incredible ecosystem of titles with only iOS devices. The company sells no actual controllers or joypads; everything is touch-based.

So does it make sense for Apple to make a physical game controller that somehow connects to your iPhone and iPad? According to a new report, the answer is yes.

PocketGamer has learned that Apple allegedly met with developers at the annual Game Developers Conference this past week to give a heads up about some kind of joypad. Apple reportedly booked a room at the trade show under a fake name to avoid the press.

Of course, there’s no official word yet, but Apple has been active during the conference talking to developers about its plans and ensuring plenty of games will support the joypad at launch.

Apple has consulted high-profile game makers like EA and Gameloft before the release of upcoming products before. Several new games are usually shown from the stage at a given event to demonstrate the power of new Apple hardware. According to the report, Apple hasn’t shown any developers what its joypad actually looks like.

PocketGamer doesn’t have much of a track record to speak of when it comes to Apple stuff, but the site obviously has connections with the gaming industry. The site says it expects Apple to announce the controller around April. PocketGamer previously reported that Apple was working on a special section of the App Store that would sell premium games for $20.

This isn’t the first we’ve heard of an Apple joypad, however. Anandtech said that there’s “an internal Apple project to bring a physical controller to market” last year. Apple has probably prototyped such a device, but that doesn’t mean it will be sold in the Apple Store one day.

Releasing something like this alongside an updated Apple TV makes sense. Who wouldn’t want to play their favorite iOS games on the big screen with a real controller?

Update: Jim Dalrymple of The Loop has given one of his legendary “nopes” on this rumor. Dalrymple has a pretty infallible track record when it comes to predicting Apple’s plans, so it looks as though a game controller is sadly not happening.

Source: PocketGamer

This post was written by Alex Heath from Cult of Mac.
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Back in May, iMore reported that $200 7-inch iPad Mini was coming this October, and now the big mainstream publications like Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal are repeating those reports. Their sources indicate suppliers are ramping up for production as well.

We've already gone over the reasons why Apple would release a 7-inch iPad, especially now that the Google Nexus 7 is on the market and a Kindle Fire refresh is almost certainly on the horizon.

We still haven't seen the type of hardware leaks for a smaller iPad that we've seen for the iPhone 5), but the consistency of these rumors  at least provides a rough idea of what to expect in the medium-term from Apple. There are a lot of great 7-inch tablets out there, and Apple will probably blow them out of the water so long as they're willing to offer a more accessible price point.

Personally, I'm a fan of the size, but I'm not sure it's worth sacrificing a Retina-quality display. How often do you wish your iPad was just a little bit smaller? Is portability really a huge issue, or was Jobs right in saying the 7-inch size is a joke?

Source: WSJ, Bloomberg

This post was written by Simon Sage from iMore - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch blog.
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A new analyst report has revealed that Wintek, the current supply chain partner for Apple’s touch panels is experiencing a steep decline in sales. The report states that Wintek has experienced one of its steepest declines on record. The report also states that the decline is certainly not down to poor demand for Apple products but more likely a sign that Apple has changed technology for its panels; most likely to in-cell panels for the next iPhone.

This morning, Wintek reported consolidated June sales of NT$5.22 billion, down 33.6% MoM and much worse than the average MoM June sales increase of 1% over the past seven years. Based on our records, this appears to be the biggest MoM sales drop for Wintek since the later part of 2008 and one of the most significant drops we have on record (back to 2005). We would not overreact to the weakness at Wintek as it relates to Apple because we believe Wintek may be losing market share in key next generation Apple products and therefore ramping down certain programs.

It has been rumored before that Apple would be switching its touch panels to the new in-cell display panel technology. Current iPhone capacitive screens require a touchscreen to be fitted outside of the LCD, this means an additional layer of sensing glass which of course increases the thickness but also adds an extra step in the lamination process. Should Apple choose to use this new in-cell technology, it would offer better yield rates, reduced manufacturing costs as well as produce slimmer and lighter devices. That additional space could help Apple to increase its battery capacity and add in that much desired LTE radio.

Source: MacRumors

This post was written by Chris Oldroyd from iMore - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch blog.
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Remember those stories about BlackBerry maker RIM working on what they internally referred to as an "Apple Killer"? Remember how that turned out for them with the BlackBerry Storm and BlackBerry Torch? Well, it turns out everyone has Verizon and AT&T to thank for that. Shocking, right?

A new round of interviews with former RIM employees has revealed that AT&T and Verizon had recruited RIM to make an iPhone competitor. We all know how that panned out. Verizon's earlier efforts resulted in the BlackBerry Storm, while AT&T's created the BlackBerry Torch. Vodafone had also collaborated with RIM to specifically launch something that could give iPhone a decent fight. Why would AT&T, which at the time had an exclusive lockdownon the iPhone, and Verizon, who had been clamoring for it, want to go out of their way to create a competitor? Supposedly carriers were worried that "the wild popularity of the iPhone could give Apple outsize influence in the market," which I take to mean Apple was throwing its weight around a little too liberally for the new guy on the block, and service providers needed to prove they had alternatives in order to maintain any bargaining leverage against Apple.

At the time, AT&T's network was in shambles, and maybe they hoped to offset some of the load with a device that offered efficient data compression. Verizon had some time to kill before AT&T's exclusive ended, so any phone (BlackBerry, Android, or otherwise) that would be an asset to keeping subscribers from drifting away. Apparently co-CEO Jim Balsillie saw and ignored a report in 2010 that warned virtual keyboards made popular by the iPhone would pose a serious threat. Balsillie also wasn't worried about the bring-your-own-device trend in businesses after seeing another similar internal report. Now RIM's device management solution supports iPhone and Android, and Balsillie's later plans to license usage of RIM services to other manufacturers were cut when Heins took up the CEO position.

Things are looking grim for RIM now that their next generation smartphones won't see the light of day until next year. Considering Heins is fully investigating licensing and acquisition deals, BlackBerry probably won't have another chance to compete against the iPhone or iPad. Can they finally nail it with BlackBerry 10?

Source: WSJ

This post was written by Simon Sage from iMore - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch blog.
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