Apple To Release The iPhone 5S With A Higher Density Display
WeiPhone, a Chinese web site, claims that Apple will drastically alter the iPhone 5S’ display raising the number of screen pixels to 1.5 – 1.6 million pixels, more than double of what the iPhone 5’s display is capable of. According to the same report, the iPhone 5S will also have a tighter bezel, though it seems a bit far fetched as the iPhone 5 already has a narrow bezel. The translated report also mentions that the release date for the iPhone 5S will be September this year, though it is not explain how they nominated this date.
However, there is a very important aspect that was omitted from the report and that is how exactly Apple will achieve this pixel count doubling. There are a few ways to achieve this, but there are also downsides to each one of them. One such way would involve raising the pixel density with 1.5 in each dimension. This would mean a display resolutions of 1704 x 960 pixels for a pixel count of about 1.6 million pixels and a pixels per inch (PPI) density of 489. However, given the fractional ratio by which the pixel density would be increased (1.5) then scaling current content for the iPhone 5S’ display wont’t give perfect results.
There is a very strong reason against an increase in resolution for the iPhone 5S and it is that a resolution increase already happened in 2012 with the release of the iPhone 5 and the fifth gen iPod touch. Last year’s resolution increase involved a few inherent changes in the iOS ecosystem, the most notable of them being represented by the fact that all app developers have had to update their existing apps to support the increased resolution of the iPhone 5’s larger display. This was a big hassle not only for app developers but also for Apple and we find it hard to believe that Apple is willing to go through it again, in such a short time. Before last year’s increase in resolution (with the release of the iPhone 5), the previous resolution increase was when Apple introduced the Retina display with the release of the iPhone 4. From the introduction of the Retina display until the next resolution increase (when the iPhone 5 was released) there was a period of about two years and we could extrapolate and say that Apple would wait at least another year before increasing the iPhone’s resolution.
There are also a few other rumors against the report released by WeiPhone. One such rumor mentions that the iPhone 5S will have the exact same display as the iPhone 5. There is also a pattern that contradicts the Chinese web site’s claim that the iPhone 5S will have a narrower bezel. Analysts suggest that Apple keeps using the same design for about two generations of the device, before a redesign. All the rumors point to Apple not breaking the pattern with the release of the iPhone 5S, which it seems will have an emphasis on internal upgrades rather than aesthetic ones, which will probably be saved for the inevitable iPhone 6.
While estimates and rumors contradict WeiPhone’s report, the web site’s forums is a place of many Apple related rumors; on the other side, the site rarely reports these rumors so it is pretty hard to determine how reliable it is. There is no indication that Apple is interested in improving the display of its next generation devices (among them, the iPhone 5S), even though competition improved the display in its products, case in point Samsung which brought its flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4, to a Full HD resolution (1920 x 1080 pixels) and a pixels per inch density of 441. Do you think Apple should also improve the display in the next generation iPhone or would you rather they concentrate on other aspects of the smartphone?
