What you need to know
- A new report claims Apple's iPhone 14 will benefit from a new titanium alloy chassis.
- Apple's iPhone 12 uses aluminum, while the iPhone 12 Pro devices use stainless steel.
Apple's iPhone 13 might not be here yet, but attentions are already turning to what we can look forward to when iPhone 14 rolls around next year. One new report claims that Apple's 2022 iPhone will use a new titanium alloy construction.
While iPhone 12 has an aluminum chassis and iPhone 12 Pro benefits from the upgrade to stainless steel, that might change in 2022. According to a JP Morgan Chase investor note seen by MacRumors, iPhone 14 is in for a big upgrade. While the report doesn't explicitly say it, I have to imagine that the use of titanium would be specific to the higher-end models only.
According to the report, the use of titanium alloy will be one of the biggest changes to the case design in the 2022 iPhone series, and Foxconn will be the exclusive manufacturer of the titanium frames for the high-end models.
The use of titanium next year would mark a first for the iPhone lineup. While titanium is available on select Apple Watch Series 6 devices — arguably the best Apple Watch you can buy — it isn't a material used in iPhones so far.
Switching to titanium would allow for strong chassis that are lighter than those that are made from steel. That would potentially mean an iPhone 14 Pro device could remove some of the weight associated with Apple's largest and most costly devices without compromising on rigidity.
The same report goes on to back up previous claims that iPhone 13 mini will be the last 5.4-inch model, with Apple switching to a lineup consisting of two 6.1-inch and two 6.7-inch devices from next year.
