Apple’s next-after-next iPhone to be all glass, no metal

One of Apple's most reliable analysts has some predictions for the 2017 iPhone - KGI's Ming-Chi Kuo says the iPhone 8 will be seeing a major redesign in 2017, dropping the iconic aluminium casing for an all-glass enclosure with AMOLED screen.

However. the upcoming iPhone 7 is not expected to have any major overhaul on the design front.

Ming-Chi Kuo believes that Apple will move to an all-glass enclosure, dropping aluminium completely as it will no longer appear modern or fresh next year. In addition, the new ''glass phone'' will include an AMOLED display panel, which is said to be lighter and thinner, so that it could compensate for the slight weight increase of glass compared with metal exteriors.

In recent times, KGI's Ming-Chi Kuo has always made accurate predictions.

Recently, Apple said that the iPhones have a life expectancy of three years and so does the Apple watch while AppleTV devices expire in four years. These numbers are in harmony with Apple's strategy of rolling out operating system updates to older devices and the hardware offered to replace older units.

For example, the recently launched iPhone SE, which is designed similar to iPhone 5S, can be upgraded from new iOS 9 to the next three years of iOS updates - something the iPhone 5S would be unable to do. The time-scale between the release of the 5S and the SE is just inside that three-year window.