The annual iPhone refresh historically happens in September, but we might not have to wait that long to see a new one this year.
According to a recent Bloomberg report (dated Jan 22), the company plans to begin mass production of a new low-cost iPhone in February, and might unveil the product as early as a month later in March.
This new offering will apparently share similarities to the iPhone 8, sporting a 4.7-inch screen, single lens camera, and Touch ID instead of Face ID that’s present in Apple’s flagship phones.
Naturally, there will be upgrades as well — the phone is said to be equipped with Apple’s latest A13 Bionic processor (the same one used in the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro) and 3GB of RAM, which is a step up from the iPhone 8’s A11 Chip/2GB RAM configuration. This should result in a significant performance boost.
The mid-range specs and out-of-left-field unveiling date suggest the creation of a new “budget” iPhone line — not unlike the short-lived iPhone SE — but one problem we see with it is that Apple already has one of those.
The iPhone 8 is currently still available on the Apple website for S$729, so what happens to that?
If you ask us, this looks like a rebranding of the iPhone 8 more than anything, similar to how the iPhone XR was quietly rechristened to the iPhone 11 last year.
Apple has been streamlining the naming conventions in their lineup to make every option look like a premium one, and this could be the latest step in that direction.
The good news is that we won’t have to wait very long to find out, so if you were planning on getting an iPhone 8, you might want to hold back for a month or so.
Header Image Credit: Vulcan Post
