The next iPhone -- let's just go ahead and call it the iPhone 6 -- will finally catch up to the competition.
Rumors have been circulating for months that Apple is testing larger-screened iPhones, and on Monday an analyst speculated in a research note to investors that the company is indeed planning to release an iPhone with a larger display.
"The iPhone 6 will likely have a new design and a 4.8" display," Peter Misek, an analyst at Jefferies LLC, wrote in the note.
The iPhone 5S and 5C, which went on sale last month, both have 4-inch screens, while the 4S and its predecessors have 3.5-inch displays. An iPhone with a 4.8-inch display would put it roughly on par with the Moto X and HTC One (both have 4.7-inch screens), although it would still have a smaller screen than the Samsung Galaxy S4, which boasts a 5-inch display.
It would certainly make sense for Apple to release a phone with a larger screen. According to the market research firm IDC, nearly 40 percent of smartphones shipped worldwide in the first half of this year had screens larger than 4 inches, up from about 24 percent of smartphones last year.
"When it comes right down to it, there's certainly demand, and Apple just leaves that market to its competition," Ramon Llamas, research manager for mobile phones at IDC, recently told The Huffington Post.
But don't offload that iPhone 5S or 5C just yet: Jefferies estimates the iPhone 6 won't come out until September 2014.
That's because Apple doesn't take product design lightly. The company spent years developing the first iPhone -- and an estimated $150 million, according to an excerpt from a forthcoming book about Apple and Google that appeared in The New York Times Magazine over the weekend.
When Apple does release that bigger phone, we're sure Donald Trump will find a way to take credit.
[h/t BGR]
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