Yes, it’s time for a bigger, better iPhone

Apple is readying to launch its next flagship smartphone — widely believed to be called the iPhone 6 — on September 9. We summarise the latest, most likely developments in the year’s most-anticipated phone release

What will it cost?

Rumours of it selling in the UK for about £550 (about R9 900), the iPhone 5’s starting price, are probably in the right ballpark.

What is it?

The iPhone 6 will be Apple’s ninth iPhone model and will take over from the 5s as the flagship smartphone. The iPhone range has sold more than 500 million units worldwide since its release in June 2007.

What will it look like?

It is generally believed that the iPhone 6 will mark an aesthetic departure from the 5s. The last relatively dramatic change in the iPhone range was the iPhone 5’s display upgrade to four inches from the 4’s 3.5-inch screen. The iPhone 6 is expected to come in two sizes — 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch.

It is possible that the next iPhone’s display will be made of sapphire glass — a synthetically grown crystal used in the iPhone 5’s home button and camera lens cover.

Apple recently opened several sapphire glass plants in partnership with GT Advanced Technologies, fuelling speculation that it is planning to use the material in larger quantities for future products — which could include the iWatch.

In June, Taiwanese pop star Jimmy Lin posted images of what he claimed was an iPhone 6 on Chinese social network Weibo. Lin has a history of posting leaked Apple product photos that later turn out to be correct, having done the same with the iPhone 5 and iPad Mini. In the picture he posted, what he alleges is an iPhone 6 sports smoother edges and what looks like brushed aluminium casing and is undeniably larger than its previous incarnation.

What will it do?

Apple announced the new operating system, iOS 8, in June, which contains a raft of new features expected to be put to good use in the next iPhone. Although current iPhone users will be able to update their software to run the new system later this year, the iPhone 6 is highly likely to come with iOS 8 or higher as standard.

With iOS 8, users will be able to monitor their health and fitness through new framework HealthKit, which aggregates numerous healthcare and fit- ness apps, such as blood pressure and heart rate monitors, and allows them to communicate with each other.

In additional, you will be able to control home appliances and other connected devices through HomeKit, Apple’s connected home framework. It will streamline your smart devices to control them in one place. One method of control will be through Siri — for example, you could tell Siri you are “going to bed” and it could dim the lights, lock your doors, close the garage door and set the thermostat.

When can I buy it?

In South Africa, we are normally a few months behind the US and UK, but production of the new model began this month. Suppliers are believed to be preparing to produce up to 80 million of the new handsets by the end of December, according to the Wall Street Journal. — ©