A new report says that Apple has three iPhones in the works for next year, including two iPhone X successors with OLED displays that should have the same design as the current model. The third iPhone to be released next fall is supposedly an LCD-based model that will still look very much like the iPhone X.
If accurate, it means there’s no escaping the notch. And it makes perfect sense, given that Apple is likely eager to bring its Face ID camera to as many new devices as possible.
Nomura analysts made these claims in a research note seen by Business Insder. The analysts also said that Apple’s 2018 iPhones may offer as much as 512GB of storage, and the iPhone X Plus version will support two SIM cards.
“We think the focus for 2H18F new iPhones is to optimize those technologies in terms of performance and costs and adopt a broader iPhone portfolio, rather than bring in more significant technology changes into new iPhones,” the Nomura note reads. “We think the specs of 6.5” OLED and 5.8” OLED new iPhones are mostly the same as those on iPhone X (5.8” OLED), except for the screen size and the support of dual physical SIM cards of the 6.5” iPhone.”
The LCD iPhone, meanwhile, will cost between $650 and $900. It’s unclear how big it’ll be, but the analysts say the phone will have the same TrueDepth camera that powers the 3D facial recognition system inside the iPhone X. The display will not have 3D Touch, and it’ll feature a single-lens camera on the back.
Finally, the Nomura analysts say the rear camera on next year’s iPhones won’t have 3D-sensing capabilities.
Recent reports did say that Apple is working on LCD versions of the iPhone X and that a dual-SIM iPhone may be in the works for next year. Pegatron and Wistron may be tasked with building the cheaper 2018 iPhone, while Foxconn is likely to win the contract for the more expensive OLED models.
