IHS Technology analyst Kevin Wang has posted on Chinese social media that company supply chain research indicates Apple’s upcoming iPhone 7 will boast 32GB storage in its base model. If correct, this means we finally say so long to the much-maligned 16GB base model that has been available for far too many years.
… IHS has a reasonable track record of accuracy when it comes to Apple rumors, correctly predicting last year that a 4 inch iPhone would debut in 2016 based on supply chain sources … which obviously transpired into reality as the iPhone SE.
Wang also claims the iPhone 7 will include 2GB of RAM, the same as the iPhone 6s. Wang makes no distinction between the 7 and the 7 Plus, so its is unclear if he means it will be 2GB across the “7” lineup. Industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, earlier this year predicted the larger iPhone 7 Plus model would boast 3GB of RAM to help it handle the processing requirements of its much-rumored dual-camera component.
Hopefully, Wang is correct when he says the 16GB iPhone will fall by the wayside this year. For far too long Apple has clung to the 16GB base model, which has been around since 2008. While that amount of storage may have been sufficient at the time, with the advent of larger apps, huge video and song libraries, improved cameras, and 4K video, 16GB of storage is no longer adequate, even for the entry-level buyer.
In other iPhone 7-related news, Japanese newspaper Nikkei is making the claim that Apple is moving away from their two-year “tick tock” major iPhone refresh cycle to a three-year refresh cycle.
Apple will likely take three years between full-model changes of its iPhone devices, a year longer than the current cycle. In a typical two-year term, fall 2016 was supposed to see a major upgrade. But the changes on the model to be launched this autumn will be minor, such as improved camera quality.
The publication says that the change is driven by two factors, pointing toward a slowing market, and saying smartphone functions have little room left for major enhancements.
A number of reports, including one from Kuo, indicate the iPhone 7 design would be largely unchanged and that it would not have “many attractive selling points.”
The iPhone 7 devices will likely take place in September, at the usual Apple media event. However, we may also get a peek at some possible features of the new device, when Apple unveils a new version of iOS at June’s Worldwide Developers Conference.
