A new iOSphere trend may have been launched this week, with a video selfie that, by some magical logic, further confirms the expectation that iPhone 6 will have a 4.7-inch display.
Also this week: Taiwan's Innolux is apparently in luck having allegedly won a contract to be one of three display suppliers for the iPhone 6 (and, yes, it's for the 4.7-inch screen, further confirming, etc.); yet another dummy is offered for further confirmation; and digging still deeper, someone found an aluminum mold, used by phone case manufacturers, that still yet more confirms that 4.7 is the Magic Number.
You read it here second.
iPhone 6 rumors "firm up" due to video selfie
GottaBeMobile's Josh Smith is positive that the iPhone 6 rumours, specifically those about its screen sizes, are "firming up." But it's hard to see why.
According to his post, "The iPhone 6 screen sizes are firming up as a new report claims Apple shut Samsung out of the new iPhone and Apple plans on three companies to supply a 4.7-inch iPhone 6 display and we hear nothing about a 5.5-inch iPhone for 2014."
+ Also on Network World: Best/Worst Apple iPhone 6 concepts +
This harkens back to the already-cited rumor about Innolux. But, apparently, if we hear "nothing" in the past week about a 5-5-inch iPhone, then that means it doesn't exist. Or will not exist. Or will not exist in the same space-time continuum as the 4.7-inch iPhone.
And then, Smith gets to the best part. "These new iPhone 6 rumors come right as a new video shows what iOS 7 looks like on a 4.7-inch display," he reveals. "A new video, similar to our iPhone 6 screen sizes visualized video from January, shows the current version of Apple's iPhone software running on a larger display with calls, Flappy Bird and other iPhone apps on the screen."
That makes it sound as if GottaBeMobile uncovered some prototype, perhaps in a beer hall, or had access to leaked video. But when you click on the link, you see none other than Josh Smith himself with some dummy iPhones that have a mock-up of the iOS 7 homescreen. A video selfie.
It's all rather surreal: associating the linkbait "iPhone 6" with a 4.7-inch screen that's showing something the iPhone 6 itself will never run, namely iOS 7.
(The surreality was infectious: the same day, 9to5Mac posted its own "simulation" based on a Motorola Moto X phone with a 4.7-inch display of what a similar-sized iPhone 6 running iOS 7.1 would look like. As Dom Esposito, with unconscious irony, wrote, "Regardless of how scientifically accurate this iPhone 6 simulator' is, it provides a closer look at exactly how iOS could be represented when enlarged on a 4.7-inch display.")
GottaBeMobile's Smith doesn't shy away from drawing Big Conclusions from his phictional iPhone. "As WWDC [Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference] 2014 approaches and rumors of iPhone 6 production become more frequent it continues to look like Apple will be ready to sell a 4.7-inch iPhone 6 before a larger 5.5-inch model."
iPhone 6 to have Innolux 4.7-inch display
A garbled-in-translation Chinese language post at Taiwan's United Daily News suggests to iOSpherians that Innolux will be one supplier for a 4.7-inch display to grace the iPhone 6.
Here's the opening paragraph via Google Translate: "Innolux Embedded Touch (on cell) screen pass for 4.7-inch version of Apple iPhone 6 certification through, beyond Samsung and Sharp, have the opportunity to become the second wave of iPhone 6 supply vendors for innovation in small groups size panel inject new growth engine."
There's more: "Supply chain sources, iPhone 4.7-inch screen 6, the first wave of suppliers, identified as LG Display (LGD) and Japan Display Corporation (JDI), due to the 4.7 -inch version of stocking up $60 million to $80 million, the demand is very large, therefore, also requires a second wave of Apple suppliers send samples."
Fortunately, Mihai Matei, at GForGames, can decipher all this.
It's simple really. "According to reports, Apple has partnered up with both LG Display (LGD) as well as Japan Display Corporation (JDI) in order to manufacture the 4.7-inch panels of the iPhone 6," he writes. "However, two manufacturers are not enough for the anticipated high demand of the next iPhone, and the Cupertino giant was searching for a third supplier. Judging by the latest reports, Apple may have just found its third partner."
By now, we're holding our breath.
"Based on these latest reports however, Apple has decided to turn down Samsung and Sharp, and has chosen to stick with Innolux instead," Matei writes. "As for Innolux, the said company has a bit of a history behind it, as it's been one of the world-leading TFT-LCD suppliers since it's been established back in 2003." He seems to have taken his insights from the Wikipedia entry, which also describes Innolux as "a world-leading TFT-LCD supplier."
Matei doesn't go into much more, or actually anymore, detail about Innolux.
Apple routinely has multiple sources for components. The fact that Innolux might be one for displays doesn't reveal much. The real issue is whether Apple plans new display innovation beyond the long-rumored larger screen size and higher resolution for one or more 2014 iPhone introductions.
iPhone 6 with 4.7-inch screen confirmed by anonymous photos of a dummy phone
Somebody at a Romanian iPhone accessories website contacted another website, GSMArena, claiming to have photos of a "dummy" iPhone 6, whatever that means, and GSMArena took the bait and ran with it.
"This should finally settle the dispute about the size of the new Apple flagship," according to the GSMArena post.
Just to be clear: GSMArena is declaring that a Romanian website that sells phone accessories (and here it is via Google Translate) has conclusively proven, with anonymous photos of a purported dummy iPhone, that the Next iPhone will have a 4.7-inch screen.
Apparently what really convinced GSMArena was the fact that the Romanians used a digital sliding gauge to actually measure the dummy iPhone, as you can see here. Precision is essential in pulling the wool over your own eyes. The dummy's dimensions are 137.5 x 67 x 7mm or for the metrically challenged, 5.4 x 2.64 x 0.27 inches.
"The photos also give us the full tour of the iPhone 6 exterior, which features the iPod touch like design now familiar from the torrent of leaks," according to GSMArena. Why stop with "torrent?" What not the tsunami of leaks?
A leak is "an unintended hole, crack, or the like, through which liquid, gas, light, etc., enters or escapes." The word is used as a metaphor for "a disclosure of secret, especially official, information, as to the news media, by an unnamed source." A true leak in journalistic terms actually reveals a genuine secret. The "leak" celebrated by GSMArena is nothing of the sort, since there is no way of knowing if what's being disclosed is actually either the iPhone 6 or a mockup or dummy of the iPhone 6.
iPhone 6 design revealed by aluminum mold used for third-party cases
The folks at TechnoBuffalo are already certain what the Next iPhone will look like, because of all the leaks, and dummies, and mockups, and concept illustrations floating around.
"But in case you needed even more confirmation, pictures of a supposed mold of Apple's upcoming handset have hit the Web, further confirming the device's rumored design," Brandon Russell assures his readers.
And here is the Even More Confirmation photo, in all its gleaming if somewhat rough-hewn glory.
But in case you needed even more help in understanding what you might or might not be seeing, Russell spells it out. "It has more rounded edges, slimmer (and separated) volume buttons, a sleep/wake button on the side, and speaker cutouts similar to Apple's iPhone 5c, just as we've been hearing."
From whence cometh this revelatory photo? "The particular mold is reportedly being used by case manufacturers ahead of the iPhone 6's release," Russell writes. "It doesn't reveal anything that we don't already know, but it further corroborates the many reports we've heard over the past few months."
Our favorite part of Russell's post: "Even though it's just a dummy unit, it gives us a pretty solid idea of what to expect later this year."
Let's think about that. Russell is actually wrong saying it's a dummy unit. A dummy is "a representation or copy of something, as for displaying to indicate appearance." A mold is, most often, "a hollow form or matrix for giving a particular shape to something in a molten or plastic state" or as in this case "a frame on which something is formed or made." He apparently has no idea who created the mold, or what information they used in doing so. And yet he's positive that the photograph "gives us a pretty solid idea of what to expect."
In the iOSphere, form follows fantasy.
John Cox covers wireless networking and mobile computing for Network World.Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnwcoxnwwEmail: john_cox@nww.com
Read more about anti-malware in Network World's Anti-malware section.
