Apple appears to be planning a big jump in 2020 with the next iPhone upgrade cycle. There will be no iPhone 11S to drop by fall next year. Instead, the new handset to replace the current series will be called iPhone 12, based on the latest claim published by Ming-chi Kuo.
Kuo, of course, is the Taiwan-based analyst that has been known to provide mostly accurate details on upcoming Apple device releases. For 2020, the Apple watcher is predicting that the iPhone maker will discontinue the tradition of releasing an "S" version following a full number jump.
If true, the move by Apple could mean many things and one of them is to simplify the naming convention. Per WCCFTech, dropping the S will make the iPhone label shorter since it is now in double digits, and the guesswork seems to make sense.
However, there has to be a better reason why the 11S will make way for the iPhone 12, and the obvious bet is the arrival of a huge upgrade three years after the introduction of the iPhone X with a notch on the front display.
According to Cult of Mac, the latest rumors indicate a design makeover and point to the ditching of the notch. How the notch will disappear and the iPhone will still boast of a powerful front camera is still a subject of debate. But in this regard, Apple is certainly late in the game as Android flagships will full-screen has been the standard since last year.
In addition, the next iPhone chassis is said to take inspiration from a popular design that Apple had presented years ago. If the speculations will prove accurate, the iPhone 12 series will have an industrial design that will look like the iPhone 4.
That would mean the device's frame will basically consist of metal, likely an aluminum alloy, that is sandwiched by glass on the back and front.
As for the killer features that the next iPhone will unpack, there will be a touch of the old servings and one will be Touch ID. This security feature is expected to be the enhanced version of the old release and will be provided to work side by side with Face ID.
It was also floated in numerous reports that the iPhone 12 will have a 5G-enabled version, and observers said this likelihood is supported by Apple's recent purchase of Intel's 5G business. Reportedly, the Cupertino tech giant paid $1 billion for the fresh buy so it's not surprising that the deployment will happen soon.
Apple is believed to stick with its calendar and push for the iPhone 12 release in September 2020 but before that event, the company is said to issue another handset. That likely would be the second-generation iPhone SE, which could be patterned after the iPhone 8 body but with inside components of the iPhone 11.
