Apple Planning to Release New iPhone in Early 2016, 3GB RAM for iPhone 7 Plus

iPhone 7

According to Ming-Chi Kuo, KGI Securities analyst, Apple will be releasing a brand new, 4-inch iPhone in early 2016. This iPhone could slightly resemble the iPhone 5s but would be much improved. This iPhone could be considered a “budget phone”, as Apple will likely be putting the A9 chip into it, rather than the new A10 which will likely be in the iPhone 7. This device is supposedly set to launch sometime in the first half of next year, if the rumors are correct.

As there is still demand for a 4-inch iPhone, we believe Apple will upgrade this product line. Because the iPhone 5s is more popular than the iPhone 5c, we think Apple is likely to launch an upgraded iPhone 5s. We predict Apple will mass-produce this new 4-inch iPhone in 1H16 with metal casings. In order to make the current iOS 9 or next-generation iOS 10 run smoothly, Apple may adopt an A9 chip for this new phone.

Kuo states that this 4-inch iPhone will likely not include 3D Touch support in an effort to keep costs down, and to differentiate it from the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. Oh, and this phone will supposedly ship out about 20-30 million units over the course of 2016.

Next up, Kuo expects that the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will launch in the usual third quarter of the year, 2016. He believes it will ship with the A10 chip, but what’s different here is that Kuo thinks the iPhone 7 Plus will be favored with 3GB RAM over the iPhone 7 with only 2GB RAM.

TSMC is expected to be the supplier of all of the chips for the new iPhone 7, and the A9 chip in the 4-inch iPhone.

So what do we think?

Kuo has a pretty decent track record for his predictions. He’s often correct, with a few errors here and there. The early 2016 launch of a 4-inch iPhone sounds far-fetched to us. There is definitely a market for a smaller iPhone, but we haven’t seen any leaks as of yet, and it just doesn’t sound “like Apple” to do that type of a launch.

iPhone 7 Plus having 3GB RAM? Yeah, we believe that is definitely a possibility. The reason Apple would do this is because with the bigger display, it’s known to be a little slower than the small models. Even with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, or the 6s and 6s Plus, the non-Plus iPhone always is slightly faster. This is really due to the fact that the Plus models have to push more pixels.

We do believe that TSMC will be the main supplier of the new chips for iPhones in the future thanks to their better battery life in the current iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus models.

What do you think? Let us know below.

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