In 2017 iPhones will change radically and new information has revealed a triple upgrade that will ensure we never look at these smartphones in quite the same way again… 

In a research note obtained by long running Apple AAPL -0.15% site MacRumors, multinational banking and financial services company Barclays has revealed all Apple’s next generation of iPhones will have new screen technology.

Barclays says a “full spectral sensing” ambient light sensor will be added across the iPhone 7S, iPhone 7S Plus and iPhone 8 to bring Apple’s ‘True Color’ iPad Pro technology to smartphones for the first time. It claims the sensors will be supplied by Austrian semiconductor manufacturer AMS.

As Apple explains on its iPad Pro page: “[True Tone] uses advanced four-channel ambient light sensors to automatically adapt the colour and intensity of the display to match the light in your environment. Which means reading anywhere is more natural and comfortable - almost like looking at a sheet of paper.”

The Good News

Having experienced True Tone on the iPad Pro, I can confirm it is a fantastic technology. It may be somewhat akin to a glorified real-time filter, but it does indeed make reading in particular more comfortable. And this benefit could be even more important for iPhones than iPads given the former have much smaller displays that are harder to read for long periods of time.

Furthermore, given that the iPhone 7S and iPhone 7S Plus (incremental updates to the iPhone and iPhone 7 Plus) will continue to use LCD while the redesigned iPhone 8 (or possibly just ‘iPhone’) will switch to OLED, this suggests Apple isn’t just trying to catch up to established OLED rivals like Samsung but surpass them.

The Bad News

What’s less encouraging is price. Barclays estimates that the material step-up will increase component cost over 60% on both LCD and OLED. As this follows on from other cost increases and multiple reports that the iPhone 8 will start from over $1,000 it looks like 2017 will also be the year of major iPhone price hikes.

Of course, as Apple’s controversial MacBook Pro upgrades showed last year, the company is not afraid to dramatically raise the price of its devices when it believes the upgrades justify it. But it does put significant pressure on the iPhone 8, perhaps more than any iPhone in history, to prove it really is the revolutionary device leaks suggest.

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