Report: Next-Gen iPhone Includes Hi-Res Screen, iBookstore
Little doubt remains that Apple will introduce its next-generation iPhone next month. The latest evidence: a report that Apple’s key iPhone supplier is set to ship at least 24 million iPhone 4Gs this year, starting in June. Many believe Apple will unveil the new iPhone at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference June 7.
According to Tiawan’s Digitimes, Foxconn will ship 4.5 million iPhone 4Gs in the first half of 2010, with 19.5 million devices ready for the remainder of this year. If correct, the shipping timetable would resemble the iPad, where Apple first pushed the tablet device out in limited quantities, then opened the flood-gate as manufacturing increased.
The new handset will feature a larger 960×640 resolution screen and fringe-field switching technology enabling better capabilities as an e-book reader, according to Digitimes analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The hardware specs appear to buttress speculation Apple will offer the iBookstore on the new iPhone.
Other hardware revelations: the new iPhone will have more memory — 512MB — to enable better multitasking and battery life will be extended. The iPhone 4G will be powered by the Arm Cortex A8 processor.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
