This fall, Apple could bring out three variants of the iPhone 7 – including two 4.7-inch models. This is judging from a new photo purported to show screen panels for these three different handsets.
Steve Hemmerstoffer, the experienced tech leaker and editor of NowhereElse.fr, has posted the photo, which he claims was earlier shared by a Chinese repairer on the social networking site Weibo. The three screen panels are all apparently for 3D Touch devices, but there’s one especially intriguing difference between the 4.7-inch ones…
iPhone 7: Une photo suggère que trois modèles seraient en préparation… https://t.co/zjO5rTYKAV pic.twitter.com/FKXjBOh9ox
— Steve Hemmerstoffer (@stagueve) June 18, 2016
This is that one lacks a particular component which Hemmerstoffer says would be for a Smart Connector. He suggests that one of these 4.7-inch panels could actually be for an earlier prototype of the iPhone 7. We consider this the most likely scenario, as the panels are otherwise very similar – and Apple may have chosen to add or omit the Smart Connector at a later stage.
The 5.5-inch panel – supposedly for the iPhone 7 Plus – included in the photo also features the Smart Connector component. However, as it is unclear whether this panel could also be from an early prototype, no new light is shed on the mystery of which iPhone 7 models, if any, will get the Connector.
While one of Hemmerstoffer’s leaks last month suggested that the iPhone 7 Plus would be equipped with the Smart Connector while the smaller iPhone 7 would lose out, a more recent leak hinted that neither device would have this feature.
