Rumor mill: This year's iPhone 13 lineup didn't come with any major design changes, which is why many tech pundits are calling it the "iPhone 12S." Next year's iPhone refresh will likely be another story, with Apple joining the camera megapixel race and dropping the notch from the Pro models.
It's only been a week since Apple revealed the iPhone 13 lineup, and industry watchers are once again throwing hints about the company's future ambitions.
In a new letter seen by MacRumors, renowned analyst Ming Chi-Kuo revised his expectations about next year's iPhone 14 Pro models. Kuo believes Apple will trade the notch for a punch-hole display design akin to the one that you get with many Android flagships. Meanwhile, the standard iPhone 14 models are expected to retain the notch design. The punch-hole on the Pro variants would call for the Face ID sensors to be moved under the display.
With the iPhone 14 lineup, Apple might finally join the megapixel race with a 48-megapixel wide-angle camera. And just like many Android phones equipped with high-resolution image sensors, the resulting photos would still be 12 megapixels by default. In other words, Apple could use a technology dubbed "four-cell merge output mode" to produce oversampled images that have more detail and less noise.
Interestingly, Kuo says the iPhone 14 Pro Max pricing will start at $899, which would be a significant change from the iPhone 13 Pro Max's $1,099 starting price. As for the iPhone SE, it could see another refresh that will add 5G connectivity. For people who love Touch ID and wouldn't trade it for the additional screen real estate on other iPhone models, the company is working on an under display version that could debut with the 2023 iPhone lineup.
Finally, Kuo says a foldable iPhone is further off than initially expected. This means that Apple's take on the new form factor may not see the light of day until 2024 at the earliest.