Apple’s newest iPhone could have big screen, big price

WASHINGTON: Apple Inc is expected to blast further past the $1,000 price barrier when it launches new iPhones on Wednesday, but Wall Street is most intrigued by how deep into its larger-than-ever lineup prices hikes may go. Apple’s market capitalisation has passed $1 trillion and the company needs to sustain revenue growth from its signature product even as global demand for smart phones plateaus. One way to do that is to get people to buy more expensive phones. “There’s no real game changer on the table,” said Hal Eddins, chief economist at Apple shareholder Capital Investment Counsel. “It’s a matter of getting people to keep moving up.” The new top model is expected to have a 6.5-inch (16.5-cm) screen with an edge-to-edge display and be called the iPhone X Plus or Max. It would have an OLED display with richer colours, and Wall Street is targeting a price of $1,049 or $1,099 versus the current $999 base price for the iPhone X. A second phone with a 5.8-inch OLED display, likely called the iPhone Xs, would be similar to the iPhone X but with an improved processor. But it is a third expected model with 6.1-inch display, potentially called the iPhone 9, that has intrigued analysts most. The big display is expected to use lower-cost LCD technology but look more like last year’s iPhone X than the iPhone 8, which itself looked similar to phones going back to 2014’s iPhone 6. Apple declined to comment. — Reuters