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What’s Next For The Apple iPhone?

New York — A better back camera, Force Touch user interface, a better battery, a higher resolution display and faster LTE could be the hallmarks of the next-generation iPhones that Apple is expected to unveil during the week of Sept, 7, analysts said.

The successors to the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch 6 Plus will also feature iOS 9, the OS upgrade that Apple unveiled earlier in the year for fall availability.

Any enhancements are expected to be incremental improvements over the current models, which grew Apple’s market share in the U.S. largely because of larger screens that replaced the 4-inch screens of prior iPhones. Nonetheless, potential enhancements in key areas will reduce the technology gap with competitors.

Here’s what the new iPhones might add:

Camera: Current iPhones offer an 8-megapixel main camera with 1080p video capture at 60 fps, but several competitors offer phones with 4K Ultra HD video capture and DSLR-like features, while image capture runs up to 21 megapixels on Motorola’s new Moto X Pure. Apple’s phones also feature f/2.2 aperture, while competitors offer up to f/1.8 (on the LG G4). The iPhones could also pick up optical zoom to replace inferior digital zoom technology.

Display: The 6 Plus features FullHD resolution of 1,920 by 1,080 with 401 PPI, and the 6 features 1,334 by 750 HD resolution with 326 PPI, but competitors sport up to quad-HD 2,560 by 1,440 displays with up to 559 PPI in the Samsung Galaxy S6. LG’s flagship G4 features quantum-dot-like display technology to expand the color gamut.

Force Touch: The new iPhones could likely pick up the Apple Watch’s Force Touch technology, which lets users press with different force levels to do different things. Consumers watching video, for example, could touch the screen lightly to play video in slow motion and press harder to put into back speed and press it harder to speed through the video.

RAM, processor: Apple’s A8 processor chip in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is a dual-core 1.5GHz chip supported by only 1GB of RAM, whereas Samsung’s flagship S6 runs a 64-bit octa-core processor running at quad 2.1GHz plus quad 1.5GHz. That phone features 3GB RAM.

LTE: The latest iPhones feature VoLTE (Voice over LTE) and 150Mbps LTE, but LTE-Advanced technology accelerates peak download speeds to a minimum of 300Mbps in select phones, including the Galaxy 3G and LG G4.

The new iPhones might also get LTE carrier aggregation for the first time to further accelerate download speeds in networks offering the technology.

iOS 9: Previously announced enhancements in iOS9 include :

–the expansion of HomeKit home-automation control to windows shades, sensors such as carbon monoxide and motion sensors, and security systems.

–the ability of Car Play to support automakers’ own apps from within the Car Play UI, plus the ability to connect an iPhone to a Car Play head unit via Wi-Fi without plugging the phone into a USB port.

–a smaller footprint using up only 1.3GB of free space instead of the 4.6GB required by iOS 8 to boost performance.

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