apple: What the pictures of ‘first’ iPhone 14 Molds tell: Apple may discontinue one iPhone model and more

A photo claiming to be of the molds of Apple’s 2022 iPhone 14 series has appeared online. The picture offers an alleged preview of the relative sizes of this year’s Apple iPhone portfolio. According to a report in MacRumors, the pictures that have been sourced from the Chinese microblogging website Weibo appear to be of third-party iPhone cases. What makes analysts believe they may be authentic is the fact that they are in line with some of the unconfirmed details about the iPhone 14 series coming from suppliers and other sources in the last few months.
What ‘iPhone 14 Molds‘ reveal
The biggest notable difference in the lineup is the change in iPhone sizes in 2022. As have been the rumours, iPhone 14 mini model is missing. Apple is reportedly eliminating the 5.4-inch iPhone due to the lack of adequate demand from customers. This, however, does not mean that Apple iPhone 14 series will only have three models. The company is said to be replacing iPhone mini series with another model. Apple iPhone 14 series is likely to come in four sizes: 6.1-inch iPhone 14, a 6.1-inch iPhone 14 Pro, a 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Max and a 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Pro Max. This means that for the first time, Apple may launch two iPhone Max models with 6.7-inch screen.
Apple launched iPhone mini series in the year 2020. iPhone 12 mini was the first model in the mini series. With this, Apple gave iPhone buyers another small screen option other than iPhone SE series that sports 4.7-inch screen. Other than the screen size, ‘mini’ iPhone models sport largely same specifications as their 6.1-inch siblings (iPhone 12 and iPhone 13).
Incidentally, this is not the first time that there have been rumours of the iPhone mini model not doing well. In 2021 year too, there were speculations of the ‘mini’ model of iPhone doing poorly in terms of sales. However, Apple did launch iPhone 13 mini.
Likely design of iPhone 14 series
Apple iPhone 14 models are expected to retain the same flat-edge design as the current-generation iPhone 13 series in terms of looks. There may be slight camera bump size changes across the lineup. This is something that we witnessed in iPhone 12 vs iPhone 13 series too. According to ‌iPhone 14 Pro‌ Max schematics shared by Max Weinbach, the camera bump in the high-end models of ‌iPhone‌ 14 series will be 4.17 mm thick or 0.57 mm larger than the bump on the iPhone 13 Pro Max.
The popular Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has also claimed that this year’s iPhone linuep will come with 48-megapixel Wide camera. This will be a major jump in iPhone camera specs which has been retaining the 12-megapixel sensor since past some years now.