Over the past few months the rumor mill has once again been obsessed with a smaller iPhone, it has been claimed time and again that Apple is readying a 4-inch iPhone which it’s likely going to release early next year. New information has surfaced today from a well known Apple analyst who has been right on some accounts in the past. Apparently the 4-inch iPhone will be powered by Apple’s latest A9 processor and will have support for Apple Pay.
Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities claims that the rumored iPhone will look quite like an upgraded iPhone 5s, and that it will feature a metal build and similar camera specifications to the iPhone 5s.
However the analyst does claim that a major specification this iPhone will boast is going to be Apple’s new A9 processor that powers the iPhone 6s, aside from having support for NFC which will enable users to make payments with Apple Pay.
The analyst further predicts that this handset will be priced between the $400 to $500 price range with the primary goal being to expand the iPhone’s reach in emerging markets where customers may not be able to spend a significant sum of money on handsets like the iPhone 6s.
Apple has tried to do something similar in the past with the iPhone 5c but that experiment failed to take off, which is why a successor to that plastic build touting iPhone was never released. Perhaps it feels that the emerging markets will be more receptive to a slightly cheaper iPhone if it had all the classic elements that make an iPhone an iPhone.