Apple had a red-faced moment back in 2010 when an employee left a pre-release iPhone 4 prototype in a California bar. What followed was a series of legal battles. Almost all the features of the iPhone 4 were leaked out before the official launch.
Something similar has happened 7 years later. An Apple employee uploaded a firmware file for their upcoming HomePod on a public server instead of a private one and it was too late before he could rectify this mistake. A number of developers have downloaded the file and scoured through the code, getting whatever they can about all upcoming iPhone devices.
Here’s what they’ve learnt so far-
- No Home Button
This thumbnail for the iPhone design was obtained. The more you observe it, the more you learn about the changes from the previous iterations of the iPhone. We can see that there is no home button on the front. What this means is that the home button solution will be similar to the Galaxy S8’s where if you press hard enough on a fixed location of the screen it would act like a home button. It could be easily implemented with 3D Touch.
2. Much Slimmer Bezels
The iPhones we use now have fairly large bezels compared to their Android competition. Phones like the Galaxy S8 and the LG G6 pioneered the bezel less design and now we can be sure that Apple too has jumped on the bandwagon. This means we are getting a newer design which could indirectly mean there would be no iPhone 7S, but an iPhone 8 in its lieu.
3. No TouchID
Apple’s fingerprint sensor, TouchID has always been integrated with the home button. However, this time around as there is not home button, we have two possibilities. We either get a fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone or Apple does away with TouchID and instead we get facial recognition to unlock our phones. As cool as it may seems, the technology of integrating the scanner under the screen is still not mature enough and it’s unlikely we’ll get that.
4. 4K Video Recording at 60 fps
Some of the leaked lines of code have suggested that iPhone 8 will feature 4K video recording at 60 fps. No mobile phone right now boasts of doing this and Apple will surely get the attention of many vloggers and video makers if they go on to integrate this feature in the new iPhone.
5. Higher Resolution Screen
Found in the lines of code, is also a larger screen resolution. This means that the displays of the iPhones are going to be more crispier than before. This was expected as the 1920×1080 resolution of the iPhone 7 Plus is way behind other flagship phones which boast 2K and even 4K displays. Apple may also have to bump the battery capacity to maintain decent battery life, now that there’s a more power hungry display.
6. Three new iPhones
Developers have found three codenames of devices instead of the 2 they get every year. This means we could be seeing 3 new iPhones aka the iPhone 7S, 7S Plus and the iPhone 8. This would be a first for Apple as they’ve never unveiled 3 new iPhones at a single event before.
7. Smarter Camera
A SmartCam module has also been found in the firmware, which would allow the camera to automatically detect its surroundings and fine tune the camera settings to get the best shot possible. This might just be the next big thing for Apple, as they’ve been overtook by competition from other Android smartphones in the camera department.
Even this is not all, folks! We’ve just started to scratch the surface for now. There have been hints for even more features, like wireless charging and face recognition. We’ll keep you updated as soon as we get more information.
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