On a fan community page on Chinese social media platform Weibo, hundreds of users have posted comments and pictures, some covered in little red hearts, to express their admiration for a star they affectionately call Kun Kun. “Kun Kun flies bravely, iKun will always follow him; Kun Kun never gets old, and will remain a blue-chip till the end,” some users wrote alongside the picture. “Kun Kun,” whose full name is Zhang Kun, is neither a pop star nor actor. Instead, he is one of China’s most prominent fund managers who oversees around 120 billion yuan ($18.6 billion) in assets at E Fund Management, an established Chinese asset management firm. Zhang’s followers, who label themselves “iKun,” (“i” is a homophone for the Chinese word love), have also created accounts on Weibo posing as his “global fan clubs.” “Kun Kun, I would like to accompany you for many, many years,” a follower wrote. “Let’s witness both the bull and bear markets, but still return with young hearts.”
HIGHLIGHTS
- iPhone 12 could come with a new notch-less display
- Leaked patents have shown a possible new design for the upcoming iPhones
- The patent shows a device with a rectangular display and square corners
Like most years, there’s a lot of hope and expectations from Apple’s 2020 series of iPhones. The iPhones are expected to bring with them a number of new firsts for the industry, and some firsts for Apple. One of which now appears to be the presence of notch-less displays on the upcoming iPhones.
New patents have emerged that show an iPhone, but without the notch that’s been a feature on most of the iPhones we’ve seen in the past few years. The patents were first spotted by GoDigital which shows a device that looks like an iPhone but misses out on the notch.
The patent shows a device with a rectangular display and square corners. Interestingly, because of the lack of a notch on the device, the device appears to be missing the required hardware for Apple’s Face ID tech.
There’s also no front-facing camera leading us to believe there could be a pop-up selfie lens hidden inside the frame of the device. On the outside, the patents show the frame to house a power button, volume keys, and a physical notification switch just like an iPhone. There also appears to be a SIM tray that’s placed below the power key.
The report goes on to suggest that the device in question is the new iPhone for 2020. However, that does appear a little far fetched considering that Apple would have to bring about a radical design change in order to get rid of the notch.
As per the report, the redesigned Apple phone would bring in-display front-facing cameras and an in-display fingerprint scanner to counter the loss of the notch. It would be interesting to note that numerous Android handsets have under-screen fingerprint readers (optical and ultrasonic methods), and companies such as Oppo and Xiaomi have taken to demonstrate in-display cameras too.
However, the latter is a technology that’s still at a nascent stage and as such, it would be quite a surprise if Apple decided to use it for its next iPhone in 2020. Having said that, it’s entirely possible that Apple has filed this patent to start work on a new phone that could be launched in the next 2-3 years. While it’s all still in the realm of speculation for now, more on this should be known in the future.
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