Excited Apple fans can expect a September launching for the two epic phablets, iPhone 7 Plus and iPhone 7 Pro. (Photo : Martin Hajek)
It's possible that the iPhone 7 release date will not happen this year but Apple still issue two 2016 iPhone upgrades. Instead, the tech giant has reportedly reserved the iPhone 7 arrival for 2017 thus pushing the iPhone 8 for another year or so.
The scenario was presented by well-known gadget leaker Evan Blass in a report for Venture Beat. Blass, also known as @evleaks, claimed that starting with the iPhone 6 Apple has adopted a three-year upgrade cycle, meaning that the next iPhone will unbox bearing the same design and build template that was introduced in 2014.
While the 2016 iPhone is rumored to ditch the 3.5mm audio jack, the basic device chassis will remain the same, which supposedly prompted Apple to reserve the iPhone 7 label for the 2017 refresh. So for next year, Apple fans will wait for the iPhone 7 for the flagship device's 10th year anniversary and not for the iPhone 8 as recent reports have suggested.
And it will be worth the wait, according to @evleaks, adding that Apple will resurrect the rear glass first seen with the iPhone 4. However, Blass seems clueless on the exact name that Apple will use for the 2016 iPhones, which will still hit the market in 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch editions.
In a related report, BGR said that it indeed appears that the iPhone major revamp is not scheduled this year but for 2017. And the redesign will produce an all-glass iPhone.
"For years, Apple Chief Design Officer Jony Ive has expressed a desire for the iPhone to appear like a single sheet of glass, according to people familiar with the matter," the BGR report quoted a recent news story published by The Wall Street Journal as saying.
Not only that the 2017 iPhones will be all-glass, the front panel will be all-screen. "The current design ideas for the 2017 iPhones are expected to push the handsets in that direction by eliminating much of the bezel around the display with the OLED screen," the report said in another quote of the same WSJ article.
Lending significant support to this claim is the supposed ramping up of OLED production for use with the 2017 iPhones. Apple Insider reported that OLED suppliers are preparing for the use of the material for the iPhone to be assembled next year, identifying Samsung and Sharp as Apple's chief partners for the project.
However, the report did not specify if the 2017 release date to follow the massive OLED production for Apple will be for the iPhone 7.
