The Lightning port on the iPhone will live
at least another year.There was more to cheer than boo
in the iPhone and iPad world in 2020,
and that puts it pretty much ahead
of most of the world. But can 2021
deliver something better? It’s time for
some predictions.
LUCKY NUMBER 13
The past two years have seen Apple
increment the iPhone’s name by
a single number, going to iPhone
11 and then iPhone 12. This would
normally make me certain that an
iPhone 13 was on the horizon, rather
than an iPhone 12S. But we live in a
world where some buildings don’t
label their thirteenth floor as the
thirteenth floor because of bad mojo?
Superstition, that’s the world.
Will an iPhone 13 ever exist?
I can’t see Apple jumping over it
and going straight to 14, and Apple
can’t tread water by adding letters
to the end of the iPhone 12 forever.
My money is on Apple calling it the
iPhone 13, making a joke about
superstitions at the product roll-out,
and moving on as usual.
After a major exterior design
refresh with the iPhone 12, I expect
Apple to leave things be in 2021. The
new iPhone will look more or less like
the current models, albeit with some
new colours, some textural variations,
and maybe a smaller ‘notch’ for the
TrueDepth camera stack.
It seems like it’s probably going
to be another year or two before
Apple tries its hand at a folding
iPhone, but I wouldn’t be shocked
if we got a ‘portless’ iPhone created
by omitting the Lightning port. If it
happens, Apple would probably revise
the MagSafe connector introduced
recently to also support data transfers
and toss one in the box. But if I had to
predict – and I do, that’s why I’m here- I’d guess that the much-rumoured