iPhone 8 Rumor Rollup: Tim Cook cites rumors; LTE shortfall; envisioning a function area

If you think you’re sick of the iPhone 8 rumors, pity Apple CEO Tim Cook, who acknowledged during a Q&A following the company’s earnings results announcement this past week that “earlier and much more frequent reports about future iPhones” did in fact “pause” purchases of current models.

451 Research, issuing smartphone demand survey findings this week, concurred with Cook’s assessment, noting that while Apple remains the preferred manufacturer among planned smartphone buyers surveyed, much fewer of them are planning purchases in the next 90 days as they anticipate iPhone 7s, iPhone 7s Plus and possibly a 10th-anniversary premium phone. 

451 Research’s VoCUL: Smartphone Trends

All of which makes Apple watchers skeptical of a report out of JPMorgan this week that said it’s possible Apple will preview its new iPhones at its Worldwide Developers Conference and deliver them in the fall. After all, why would Cook and Apple want possible buyers to press any harder on the Pause button? 

I can’t imagine Apple won’t begin delivering 10th anniversary iPhones in the smartphone’s 10th anniversary year, but some are even speculating now that the iPhone 8 (or iPhone X) might not arrive until 2018.

ELUSIVE GIGABIT LTE SUPPORT

While rumors about will be in the iPhone 8 are more interesting than those about will not be, a flurry of analysis surfaced this week regarding whether the iPhone 8 would be left in the dust by the Samsung Galaxy 8 in terms of supporting 1Gbps LTE wireless services on the way from AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and others.

CNET got this discussion rolling in April, pointing out that Samsung’s latest top-of-the-line smartphone features a chip of its own, or from Qualcomm (oh yeah, they don’t really do chips now), that supports 4G LTE, whereas Apple’s iPhone 8 might not be able to because of the company’s reliance on multiple suppliers (in this case Intel and Qualcomm). The thought being that Apple wouldn’t want some of its devices (those with Qualcomm hardware) to support 4G LTE and others not to be able to (those with Intel processors).

The CNET piece reads: “If Apple opts to skip out on Gigabit LTE, the iPhone 8 will hit the market with a key disadvantage when the company is trying to position the 10th iteration of its iPhone franchise as the most advanced phone yet. The Galaxy S8 is just the first premium phone to tap into the technology. Qualcomm expects up to 10 Android phones this year to follow suit.”

IPHONE 8 DESIGN CONCEPT OF THE WEEK

We don’t have a video for you this week, but will direct you to iDropNews and its vision of what the next iPhone could look like with a MacBook Pro-like Touch Bar or function area. The function area could morph, for example showing a virtual home button or answer/close phone call icons.