Apple’s upcoming new iPhones reportedly will include a special 10th anniversary edition phone equipped with a curved OLED display screen and a $1,000 price tag, in addition to other traditional iPhone models with liquid-crystal displays, according to the latest rumors about the handsets.
Details about the special anniversary iPhone model were described in a Feb. 28 story in The Wall Street Journal, which was based on details provided by people who allegedly have direct knowledge of Apple’s production plans.
Apple has considered using the new curved, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screen in a iPhone model since late last year, the story reported, and the company has since “ordered sufficient components to enable mass production,” according to the Journal’s sources.
By using OLED screen technology and manufacturing processes, handset makers can add curves to the displays as the components are in production, the story continued. Some Samsung smartphones already include OLED screens.
Samsung will provide the OLED screens to Apple, at least initially, the story reported.
The OLED displays will offer Apple a noteworthy new feature, which smartphone makers always try to introduce to spur sales.
The upcoming iPhones come 10 years after the original iPhone appeared on the market in 2007.
Rumors of a curved display on the 10th anniversary iPhone began appearing last August, when an eWEEK story reported about an iPhone with a curved-edge 5.5-inch or larger OLED screen, like the one used in Samsung’s Galaxy S7 Edge handset. Also expected according to those rumors are 4.7- and 5.5-inch iPhone models with traditional flat screens.
Samsung is currently the only smartphone maker to offer curved and flexible OLED screens and has used them since at least 2012.
The upcoming iPhones are also rumored to include additional new features, such as a USB-C port for recharging and other peripherals, as well as the deletion of a physical home button.
Apple’s iPhone 7 models, which were released in September 2016, were the first iPhones to drop a physical headphone jack, and instead feature ear buds that connect to the device wirelessly.
The iPhone 7 models, which start at $649, are splash-, water- and dust-resistant and include 12-megapixel cameras (dual lens cameras in the iPhone 7 Plus model) and the new A10 Fusion processor. The handsets come in 32GB, 128GB or 256GB versions.
The iPhone 7 has a 4.7-inch Retina touch-screen display, while the iPhone 7 Plus uses a 5.5-inch Retina touch-screen display. Both handsets offer 4K video recording capabilities as well as autofocus and optical image stabilization features.
Apple’s iPhone 7 flagship smartphones were so popular that the company quickly sold out of its initial opening day supplies of the jet black iPhone 7 and all colors of its larger iPhone 7 Plus handsets as their Sept. 16, 2016, launch date loomed.
Preorder sales of the iPhone 7 models in 2016 outranked earlier iPhone preorder numbers at T-Mobile and set a single-day preorder sales record for any smartphone ever offered by the carrier. T-Mobile’s preorders from Sept. 9 through Sept. 12, 2016, were nearly four times the level of the next most popular iPhone, according to an earlier eWEEK report. Sprint also saw soaring preorder rates for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, which were up more than 375 percent in the first three days over the release of the iPhone 6s models in 2015.