Take this with a huge grain of salt, but a blurry image coming out of Asia purporting to be from Apple’s own iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus spec sheets suggests that Apple may bump the resolution of the next two handsets. But honestly, it’s pretty unlikely. Here’s why.
The image above comes via Chinese microblogging website Weibo, and was spotted by Feng.com. The image – which would be easy to Photoshop – claims that the resolution of the iPhone 6s will be bumped to 2000 x 1125 pixels, or 488 pixels per inch. That’s up from the iPhone 6’s display size of 1,334 x 750 pixels at 326 pixels per inch.
Meanwhile, the iPhone 6s Plus will have its resolution bumped to 2208 × 1242 pixels, or 460 pixels per inch, compared to the 1920 x 1080 (401 ppi) display the iPhone 6 Plus has.
Honestly, neither of these numbers make a lot of sense.
Even if Apple was going to bump the iPhone 6’s resolution, it makes more sense for it to make the leap to 1920 x 1080 pixels, same as the iPhone 6 Plus. After all, iOS is already programmed to support this resolution. As for the iPhone 6s Plus’s purported resolutions, it’s frankly not a dramatic increase from what Apple currently is pushing with the iPhone 6 Plus: a mere 25% more pixels. Sure, that’s nice, but why go through the trouble when there are so many other ways to improve a display’s quality than mere pixel count (for example, how it performs in direct sunlight, the color gamut, or the display’s brightness)?
Then there’s the fact that the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are ‘tocks’ in Apple’s tick-tock cycle of iPhone updates. In other words, Apple usually only releases major updates to their handsets (like an increase in screen resolution) every two years: the iPhone 4 (but not 4s), iPhone 5 (but not iPhone 5s), and iPhone 6 have all boasted resolution in one way or another. Apple is a company of patterns. Why change things now?
Couple this with the fact that not a single rumor so far backs up the assertion that Apple is upgrading the resolution of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus displays on Wednesday, and this is one sketchy rumor. File us under skeptical.
Source: Feng.com
Via: iPhone in Canada
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
7 responses to “iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus to get Retina upgrade? Don’t count on it.”
Technically that resolutiob makes some sense and quite plausible. Because after all, iphone 6’s app is programed on ‘point resolution’ of 667*375, then upscaling it twice to 1334*750.
On the otherhand, iphone 6+’s app is programed on point resolution of 736 * 414. Then the developer multiply the point resolution 3 times making it 2208 * 1242 and then downscaling it to 1920 * 1080.
Now, if apple decided to make iphone 6s’s point resolution same as iphone 6 and then multiply it to three times (like in iphone 6+), the final resolution will become 2001*1125, which is damn similar to the rumored resolution of 2000*1125. Therefore, even if the resolution is changed, there will be almost no fragmentation (developers just have to change the number 2x to 3X, and their iphone 6 app will be optimized to iphone 6s)
And if apple decided to not downscale anymore on plus model, the iphone 6s+’s resolution will become 2208*1242 as it should be.
Surprised that the writer of this article for an Apple focused blog didn’t do their research on the iPhone before publishing an article… the resolution of the 6 Plus is ALREADY 2208*1242. The GPU renders at this resolution and then downscales it to 1920×1080 – many have speculated that this is due to yield issues for actual screens that support the higher res. 1920×1080 screens have much better yield and they are able to meet the demand with how many units they make – last year screens with a UHD or ‘2k’ resolution didn’t yield enough for them to keep up sales. However all apps are already designed and rendered at the bigger resolution so all they would need to do is change the physical screen hardware and nothing else would need to change.
Agree with the above post – author should have done more research before jumping in with the clickbait headline. A two word google search (iphone retina) returns:
>Apple’s Retina Display made its debut on 2011’s iPhone 4S, which featured a 960×640 pixel screen with four times the number of pixels (326 pixels per inch) as the iPhone 4.
Your headline is 4 years out of date.
I’d like a 4k iPhone Plus.
That extra resolution is very necessary for the phone’s use in VR goggles. I make pre rendered 3d stereo animations. The only reason I would ever need to buy another non Apple phone is for those extra pixels. I’d rather have just one device.
“iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus to get Retina upgrade? Don’t count on it.”
“Take this with a huge grain of salt?” First, I don’t think I’ve read about or heard •anyone• talking about a refresh of the iPhone screen resolution. It’s already razor-sharp. How much sharper would someone want? Second, if it’s a rumor about something no one needs, wants or expects, why even write about it, much less using a huge disclaimer?
I would like to see the resolution bump,but I am done with mentally processing rumors. We have to wait till tomorrow.
I’m skeptical of the resolution bump, but only because I think we would have heard it sooner. The reasons you give are all trivial details. Apple is NOT a company of patterns, and they have broken plenty in the past. Remember when iPhones used to be announced at WWDC? Remember when camera upgrades happened every S cycle? Remember when they stuck with displays that were an integer multiple of their point resolutions? I could go on.
That said, as insp1112 has mentioned, the 2208×1242 screen makes a lot of sense, and I may not be holding my breath for it, but I’m definitely hoping for it.