We could be seeing three phones from Apple this year. There’ll be the standard iPhone 7 of course and there’s likely to be an iPhone 7 Plus, but it’s heavily rumoured that we’ll also see an iPhone 6C or iPhone 7C.
Like the iPhone 5C this is expected to be a relatively affordable plastic-clad phone and perhaps most excitingly it might be a return to the 4.0-inch form factor, which should please anyone that’s not happy with the larger size phones Apple has been bringing out lately.
Not much is known for sure about the iPhone 6C, but there are quite a few rumours bubbling up, so keep on reading to hear everything we’ve learnt so far.
It was originally thought that the iPhone 6C would launch alongside the iPhone 6S, but that hasn't happened.
More recently there's been talk of a release in February or March 2016, so we might not have too long to wait for it and may see it before the iPhone 7.
Bear in mind also though that while a lot of rumours suggest Apple is working on an iPhone 6C there are a few dissenting voices, so we still can’t be 100% sure that we’ll see one at all.
The iPhone 6C is expected to have a 4.0-inch screen, just like the iPhone 5S. That could actually be its biggest selling point, because as popular as the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus are there’s still a market for smaller phones and launching the iPhone 6C will give buyers a choice of three different screen sizes.
It’s not known what resolution the screen will be, but 640 x 1136 seems likely. That’s the same as the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 5C and would give it a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch, which is all that the iPhone 6S offers, so we can’t really see it going any higher or lower than that.
Sapphire screens have been rumoured for the iPhone 7, but there’s little chance they’ll come to a more affordable handset, so expect basically exactly the same display as the iPhone 5S.
While it would make sense for the iPhone 6C to look like a shrunk down iPhone 6S some rumours suggest it will look more like the iPhone 5S, which presumably means a more rectangular design, but apparently with a slightly curved screen, just like the iPhone 6S.
We actually may have got a look at the iPhone 6C though, as Future Supplier has leaked some images supposedly showing the casing and it looks very similar but not identical to the iPhone 5C.
It’s plastic and brightly coloured like the 5C, but the camera and flash look slightly different and there are two sets of speaker grills on the bottom edge, rather than one. It’s impossible to say whether the images are authentic, but they seem believable.
Bizarrely we may even have seen the iPhone 6C leaked by Apple itself, as a render of a phone that looked a lot like the iPhone 5C but with a Touch ID sensor in the home button briefly appeared on the page for the new Lightning dock.
It’s since been removed and could well have just been a mistake in the render, but you never know, it could be our first official look at the iPhone 6C.
However more recent rumours suggest that while the iPhone 6C will come in a variety of colours (specifically gold, silver and black) it will apparently have a metal frame, which is different to what we've seen and heard previously.
We doubt the iPhone 6C will be as powerful as the iPhone 6S or iPhone 7, since it will likely be cheaper and since the iPhone 5C was less powerful than the iPhone 5S.
Indeed, early rumours point to an A8 processor, which is what the iPhone 6 has, so it should still be powerful, but possibly not up to the standards of the 6S, which has an A9 processor, let alone the iPhone 7. Having said that other more recent rumours suggest that the iPhone 6C will in fact have an A9 processor.
The iPhone 6C could match the iPhone 6S for RAM too, with talk from My Drivers of 2GB being included. The same source reckons the iPhone 6C will have a 1642 mAh battery, up from 1510 mAh on the iPhone 5C.
There’s not really much word on what camera the iPhone 6C will have, but we’d guess that it will inherit the iPhone 6’s. That means an 8MP sensor with a dual-LED flash and a 1.2MP front-facing camera. Indeed, one recent rumour points to an 8MP snapper.
Even the iPhone 5C has an 8MP camera so there’s no chance it will be lower than that, but it will likely benefit from the software improvements found on the iPhone 6 and 6S, while the iPhone 6S has differentiated itself with a 12MP camera.
It’s rumoured that the iPhone 6C will have a Touch ID fingerprint scanner and NFC for use with Apple Pay, which are two of the iPhone 6S’s biggest features.
If the iPhone 7 has any new features such as the rumoured Apple SIM and Force Touch it’s unlikely that they’ll make it to the iPhone 6C, but you never know. It's also thought that 3D Touch from the iPhone 6S probably won't be included.
The iPhone 6C’s biggest feature though will be its price. Apple phones can be almost prohibitively expensive and while not cheap the iPhone 5C made them more affordable, which is likely to be the case again here.
We don’t know exactly what it will retail for but we'd guess that it will come in at around the £379 that the iPhone 5S currently starts at.
