The world’s top Apple analyst thinks there will be three iPhones in 2017

Reuters/Issei Kato

Apple will launch three new iPhones in 2017, according to a new note from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

As noted by MacRumors, the note mainly focuses on the display and camera technology in next years iPhones. Kuo believes that there’ll be two sizes with LCD screens — similar to today's iPhone and iPhone Plus — and one with an OLED screen (and dual cameras).

OLED is a type of display tech that’s already available on numerous high-end phones today. The Samsung Galaxy S7 and Google Pixel are two notable examples. It allows for an infinite contrast ratio, which helps colors pop more onscreen. Done right, it could be a notable improvement over what's on current iPhones. Apple itself has already adopted the tech with the Apple Watch and the Touch Bar of the new MacBook Pro.

Rumors for the 2017 iPhone have been all over the map, and as always you should take this one with a big heaping of salt. It wasn’t long ago that an “iPhone 7 Pro” was rumored alongside the eventual iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, and that never came to pass.

But reports of Apple adopting OLED as part of a radical, all-glass redesign for next year’s iPhone have popped up repeatedly in recent months, and the notion of Apple using a third device to introduce it isn’t new either. Past rumors have suggested that the third model could be anywhere between 5 and 5.8 inches. 

Plus, these latest predictions come from Kuo, who has a very long track record of figuring out Apple devices before they launch.

Nevertheless, we're probably 10 months away from a new iPhone launch, and even Apple might not know how 2017 is going to shake out. 

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