If you’ve been holding off upgrading your iPhone in the hope that Apple was preparing something radically different for 2019, you may have been waiting in vain, despite the appeal devices like the iPhone XS and iPhone XR seemingly hold.
According to a report from Nomura analyst Anne Lee, Apple appears to be saving any planned iPhone design changes for 2020 (via Barron’s).
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So if you don’t like the way the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR look, hard luck. Even if you do like the current iPhone design template, it’s looking increasingly likely that the first 5G iPhone will arrive in 2020, rather than next year.
“We think the three new iPhones in 2H19F will likely have the same form factors (body size and displays) as the 2H18 iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max, with some added AR [augmented reality]-related features,” Lee wrote in a report that was published at the end of last week.
“We think 2019 could be the last year the iPhone uses the iPhone X design architecture, in preparation for initial hardware specs for 5G (sub-6GHz) and AR (augmented reality), before greater architecture upgrades in 2020F for 5G and a more comprehensive AR system.”
In other words, you can expect next year’s batch of new iPhones to be very similar − and possibly look identical to − this year’s batch of new iPhones.
Multiple recent reports have claimed that the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and the iPhone XR aren’t selling as well as Apple had hoped they would and, at least right now, sticking with more of the same doesn’t appear to be the best strategy in the world.
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That said, Apple has not revealed actual sales figures for the handsets.
The company’s vice president of product marketing, Greg Joswiak, has, however, tried to spin the situation positively, and recently declared: “Since the iPhone XR became available, it’s been the best-selling iPhone each and every day that it’s been on sale.”
What do you think of Apple’s current iPhone range? Let us know on Twitter @TrustedReviews.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
