iPhone 6 release date 2014

17 February 2013 Last updated at 1:51 pm

According to one analyst, Apple iPhone 6 (which rumoured to be the 4.8 inch smartphone) could be released as late as in the middle of 2014.

iphone-6

The much rumoured iPhone 6 won’t be released until the middle of next year, an analyst has claimed , which may be a 4.8 inch smartphone.

A popular analyst named Mr. Misek has said the possible reasons for this unexpected delay could be due to the display yield and a few other major changes to the handset. It was at first thought to be released in the summer of this year, Misek perviously confirmed.

According to him, there were three “bottlenecks for the iPhone that could contribute to lower yields (and hence higher costs) and/or a delayed launch.” Here’s what Misek had to say (courtesy of MacRumors):

- App processor production at 20nm. Apple’s current iPhone app processor is on 32nm. For the iPhone 6 we think Apple will likely skip over 28nm and go to 20nm to facilitate adding more cores (4 or even 8). While TSMC is targeting a 2014 ramp in its 20nm production we think that issues like double patterning could make it a more complicated transition than the 28nm ramp, which had its own substantial ramp and yield issues.

- Display shifting from in-cell LCD to on-cell OLED or IGZO. We think in- cell is having difficulty ramping to 4.8”, which is making Apple look at switching to on-cell (a different integrated touchscreen technology) and OLED (despite Apple’s suppliers being well behind Samsung in their OLED capabilities) or IGZO.

- Revamped OS. We think Apple plans to re-architect iOS to utilize more cores and better compete with Samsung. Also, we believe the way iOS interoperates with iCloud, gestures controls, and advertising will be substantially upgraded.

Perhaps we’re looking a very much lower priced iPhone 5s in the coming months.