Details in iOS 6 hint at a bigger screen for iPhone 5

There have been a lot of rumours and speculation about Apple’s next device, the iPhone 5. One of the most talked about new features of the iPhone 5 is the display. At the end of May, there were leaked pictures of the iPhone 5 components, which showed that the smartphone would maintain the same width as the iPhone 4 and 4S but come with a taller screen.

The screen is likely to be a 4.6-incher and the battery has also been spruced up to keep up with it. The company also plans to dish out a thinner display. Apple is using a technology that integrates touch sensors into the LCD. This will make the display thinner and negate the use of another touch-screen layer. DisplaySearch analyst Hiroshi Hayase explains this fact, “The absence of the layer, usually about half-a-millimeter thick, not only makes the whole screen thinner, but improves the quality of displayed images”. So, this would make the device sleeker overall and also enhance the viewing quality.

According to a report by 9to5Mac, the upcoming iOS 6, which will be the OS the iPhone 5 will run on, is scalable to a taller display. Using some tweaks in the iOS simulator application that is included in the iOS development tools, 9to5Mac reports that they were able to run the simulator at a display resolution of 640 x 1136. This was tested with both the upcoming iOS 6.0 and the current public release of iOS 5.1. The iOS 5.1 simulator displayed the home screen with a stretched set of four rows of icons. The iOS 6, on the other hand, displayed five complete rows of icons. This may confirm the rumours that Apple were testing for taller displays.

The displays on iOS 6 and iOS 5 at 640 x 1136 resolution

The simulator does not correctly display five rows of icons at any resolution other than 640 x 1136. At any other resolution, the icons scale to an iPad-like home screen layout instead of the proportions and spacing of the current iPhone and iPod displays. This adds further proof that the next iPhone display will run at a resolution of 640 x 1136.

Another thing to note about the display of the next iPhone is that Apple will incorporate a new technology called "In-cell", which will help in making the handset a lot slimmer. This would do away with the need for another touchscreen layer, as the touch sensors would be integrated into the LCD itself. By using a thinner display on their upcoming smartphone, Apple would also be able to make room for other components such as a larger battery, which is quite essential for a smartphone these days.