iPhone 6 release date, rumours & leaked images: 'Large screen envy' could encourage Apple to release iPhone 6 soon
When is the new iPhone 6 coming out? Will it be curved, or come with a bigger screen? We round up the speculation.
Updated on 24 March with new release date predictions, feature speculation and concept image.
The iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s are already approaching their six-month birthday, so Apple watchers have been looking ahead to the next iPhone, dubbed iPhone 6, new iPhone or iPhone 2014. When will the new iPhone 6 launch? How much will it cost in the UK? And what features and specifications can we expect? Will the iPhone 6 have a bigger screen? Here, we bring you the latest speculation to help answer those questions about the new iPhone 6.
Of course, we're talking about Apple here, so the iPhone 6 hasn't officially been announced yet and nothing is for certain. That hasn't stopped lots of juicy iPhone 6 rumours floating around, though. This article brings you all of the latest rumours about Apple's future iPhone 6, which we expect will arrive this year. Not everything here will be accurate, but we'll try to give you an idea of how plausible each rumour is. Read on for the latest rumours and reports about the iPhone 6.
Wondering whether to buy a Samsung Galaxy S5? Read our comparison review of the iPhone 5s and Galaxy S5. Also: read our article on whether to wait for the iPhone 6.
Read all about the iPhone 5s here and all the info about the iPhone 5c here.
We've got five juicy pages worth of iPhone 6 rumours here for you to delve into. Each page is overflowing with speculation, rumours, images and evidence that help paint a picture of what we can expect from Apple's next iPhone. If there's something in particular you're looking for, you can follow the links below to be transported to the relevant page. Alterntaively, sit back, relax and take in all the information about the iPhone 6 at your leisure.
iPhone 6 predictions: Isn't Apple too secretive for us to know anything?
Second-guessing Apple is traditionally a mug's game, but the legendarily secretive company has eased up under Tim Cook, and almost all the announcements at the 10 September press event had been correctly predicted beforehand. (Admittedly, plenty of predictions had been made that didn't come true, but pretty much everything that was announced came as no surprise to Apple rumour followers.)Particularly accurate were the iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s rumours, many of which were completely true, including new iPhone colours and new features of the iPhones. Even the fingerprint sensor was discussed in the lead up to the event.
As we discuss elsewhere, Apple isn't quite as secretive as it used to be. (Compare today's Apple, where the software and hardware design teams work hand in hand under Sir Jony Ive's supervision, to the crazy days leading up the first iPhone's launch, when half the team didn't even know what the interface would look like).
iPhone 6 release date
New iPhone 6 release date: When will the iPhone 6 come out?
The iPhone line-up gets refreshed roughly once a year. The iPhone 6 is therefore likely to launch in 2014, around a year later than the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c, which were unveiled on 10 September 2013 and hit the shelves on 20 September.However, some analysts and Apple watchers have suggested that Apple may decide to launch a new iPhone earlier in the year, perhaps at the company's annual WWDC event in June. This is certainly a possibility - Apple released the first four generations of iPhone in June, before moving to an September/October launch schedule.
In February during MWC in Barcelona, Apple grabbed headlines when an analyst claimed that the new iPhone 6 will launch in July. Mizuho Securities analyst Abhey Lamba believes that Apple is gearing up to launch the iPhone 6 in July. "The next generation phones could come out in July this year. The earlier launch will be helpful for Apple as it will ensure significant availability and distribution of the new device during the holiday season," he said.
Lamba also reiterates claims that Apple could be looking to launch multiple models of the new iPhone, with screen sizes ranging from 4.7in to 5.5in (more on this on page 2).
The calls for Apple to release its new iPhone 6 earlier than the usual September time frame are also coming from Sony's mobile chief, of all people.
Sony mobile chief and European president Pierre Perron told The Inquirer: Apple is "missing out" by only releasing yearly iPhone refreshes, instead of flooding the market with incremental updates every few months. Perron believes that people will always want the most up to date phone and technology moves more rapidly than a yearly cycle allows.
"There is a cycle in the chipset market which can give us the opportunity to launch a new product more often than once a year,” Perron said.
Forbes contributor Chuck Jones has also suggested that Apple shouldn't wait until September to announce the iPhone 6, because competition means the company is losing sales to competitors with bigger-screened smartphones.
According to research firm ISI, we're about to see "the 'mother lode' of all Apple upgrade cycles" when Apple releases two new iPhones with bigger screens this year. Reiterating rumours mentioned later in this article, the note from ISI suggests that these two new iPhones will come with 4.7in and 5.5in displays.
"'Large-screen envy' is prevalent among the iPhone installed base and we believe a 5in form-factor iPhone would spark a massive upgrade cycle as well as many 'Android switchers' returning back to the iPhone," the note read, suggesting the iPhone launch could be sooner rather than later.
Should the July launch rumours be accurate, Apple may show the new iPhone 6 at WWDC, the worldwide developers conference that the company holds in June.
Calls for Apple to move from its yearly cycle of iPhone refreshes are nothing new, in November 2013, Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty said that she expects to see multiple iPhone refreshes every year from now on, which could mean an iPhone 6 early this year followed by an iPhone 6s later in 2014.
Back in December 2013, DigiTimes reported that Apple's 2014 will see a new iPhone with a bigger screen launch in May. There has even been speculation that the iPhone 6 could arrive in March 2014.
So, to recap: the iPhone 6 could launch in March, May, June, July, September or October... helpful, right? We think that the June and September options are most plausible based on Apple's launch history.
Either way, an Apple fan and blogger in Japan was keen to be first in line for the iPhone 6, so actually turned up outside an Apple Store in Ginza to wait for the new iPhone to launch. However, his wait was short-lived, as he soon discovered he might haveto wait for seven months, an idea that seems to have put him off. I expect we'll see him return a bit nearer the release date!
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