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Apple is developing new iPhone designs including bigger screens with curved glass and enhanced sensors that can detect different levels of pressure, it has been revealed.
With screens of 4.7 inches and 5.5 inches, the two new models would be Apple’s largest iPhones.
The new handsets are still in development and plans haven’t been completed, although Apple probably would release them in the third quarter of next year, an unnamed source said.
Meanwhile, John Chen, the man charged with breathing life into struggling BlackBerry, says he has no intention of killing the money-losing handset as he looks to turn around the smartphone maker, which still boasts some high-powered users, such as the US president.
“I know we have enough ingredients to build a long-term sustainable business,” Mr Chen said. “I have done this before.”
Where Mr Chen did it before, most famously, was as CEO of Sybase, a maker of computer database software that was losing money and in crisis after having to restate its results as he took the helm in 1998.
Sybase then was in a position similar to BlackBerry’s now: it had very little credibility with Wall Street, posting a 1998 operating loss of $98 million. In 2010 he sold it to SAP for $5.8 billion.
The energetic 58-year-old Hong Kong native, who immigrated to the US in 1973, has been named executive chairman and interim chief executive of Blackberry as the company unexpectedly abandoned a plan to sell itself.
He has vowed to rebuild the Canadian firm’s once booming handset business, whose sales have plummeted as consumers, corporations and even government agencies, once its most loyal customers, have switched to devices running on the Google Inc’s Android and Apple Inc’s iOS operating systems.
Mr Chen says he is not daunted by the skepticism about BlackBerry’s ability to bounce back from its myriad problems. “There is a lot to do,” he said. “There are a lot of challenges or otherwise I would not be interested.”
