A new report announced that plans are being made to create larger screens for the next generation of Apple iPhones, according to sources familiar with the situation via Reuters on Wednesday. The rumored iPhone 5, which currently has no release date, may be the first to get the large screens, partly as a means to go up against the Samsung Android smartphones, which currently have a larger touch screen than its Apple opposition.
Production has already started on the larger screens for the next-generation iPhones in Asia, where three different suppliers - Korea's LG Display, Sharp Corp, and Japan Display Inc, a Japanese government-brokered merger which combined the production of the screen amongst the three companies, said the Reuters report.
Apple has not yet made production orders for the screens through the three Asian suppliers, though Reuters stated that "it is likely" that they will begin "as soon as June," according to the article by Reiji Murai. If this is the case, said the report, then Apple would go into the production of the next-generation of iPhones as soon as this August, going by previous schedules of "moving from orders for prototypes for key components to launch."
The new generation of iPhones are said to measure four inches across, according to a source from Reuters. This is a significant increase from the current iPhone generation 4 series, where both iPhone 4 and 4S, the latter of which contains the Siri voice technology, measure at 2.31 inches in width, according to Apple's website, and 4.5 inches in length.
The new Samsung Galaxy S III Android smartphone, which was introduced in London in early May, according to CNN, has a 4.8 inch screen, and will be available in Europe beginning May 29, 2012, and in the U.S., North America, and Japan with 4G wireless internet service sometime this summer.
Samsung, according to the report, outsold the iPhone in 2012, thanks to the first quarter sales of the Galaxy Android smartphones. The company overall has sold 45 million smartphones as of this year, said Reuters.
"I think the success of the Galaxy S II proves people want something different that isn't an iPhone, and I think the S III is a valid successor to the S II," Chris Hall, editor of technology website Pocket-lint, said in the May 3rd CNN report on the release of the Galaxy smartphones.
