Despite the fact that we still have nearly five months left to wait before Apple releases its next-generation iPhone 11 series smartphones, the pace of leaks has really picked up in recent weeks. The iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Max, and iPhone 11R (or whatever Apple ends up calling it) were shaping up to be boring updates a few short months ago, but more recent reports suggest that Apple is cooking up far more new features and upgrades than we had previously thought.
In terms of hardware, it looks like 2019’s iPhone 11 will follow the same path as 2016’s iPhone 7 series; the phones will look the same as their predecessors for the most part, but they’ll pack huge performance improvements and a bunch of exciting new features. Those of us who follow the industry closely will immediately recall that the holiday quarter following the iPhone 7’s release remains Apple’s biggest quarter ever for iPhone sales. A whopping 78.29 million iPhones were sold in that three-month period, proving that iPhones can still drum up a ton of buzz despite modest design changes. But while the visual design changes on this year’s iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Max will indeed be modest, a new leak reminds that Apple’s attention to detail remains unrivaled in the smartphone industry.
We’ve seen Apple’s 2019 iPhone designs leak a few times now. In fact just yesterday a Japanese blog posted a video that shows physical mockups of the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Max side by side. The video gives us a very good idea of what Apple’s next-generation iPhones will look like in real life when they’re released in September, but 3D printed mockups obviously don’t feature the refinement we can expect from Apple’s actual handsets.
It wasn’t very long ago that a massive gap existed between iPhones and every other smartphone out there. Where design, build quality, and premium materials were concerned, nothing else on the market even came close. Android smartphones from vendors like Samsung and LG felt cheap and plasticky because, well, they were made out of cheap plastic. If you wanted a flagship smartphone that looked and felt like a flagship smartphone, you bought an iPhone.
Needless to say, this is no longer the case. Samsung and other Android phone makers have invested a tremendous amount of effort and resources into building flagship phones that are on par with Apple’s iPhone handsets. In 2019, even small Chinese smartphone vendors that most people in the US have never heard of build sleek flagship phones made of glass and metal. There is absolutely no question that the gap between the iPhone and flagship Android phones has narrowed — but it’s still there.
Notes over the past month from the world’s top Apple insider, TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, have revealed a number of big upgrades coming to this year’s iPhone 11 lineup. According to Kuo, the iPhone 11R will be bumped up to a dual-lens rear camera, while the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Max will both get huge camera upgrades, including a new triple-lens array. Kuo also says they’ll have new frosted glass backs, and we might even have a new finish to look forward to.
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