The safe bet until today was that the iPhone 6 will launch in September. But that may now not be possible, and Apple only has itself to blame.
The iPhone 6 has had a number of setbacks in its development over the past several months all relating to the larger 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch displays. Now we’re hearing that a further setback was experienced which halted production for a period during June and July.
The issue was the backlight, which had to be redesigned.So why is Apple to blame for this delay? Apple is always trying to make its smartphones as thin as possible, and in this case they went too far. Typically a display is illuminated by a light combined with two layers of backlight film, but Apple insisted on using just one layer to allow the handset to be thinner overall. Manufacturing partners complied, but the end result is a display that isn’t bright enough, so Apple had to stop production and request the second backlight film be added.
With the problem now solved it’s a race against time for the production lines. They’ve lost at least several days of manufacturing time and I’m sure Apple has told them they don’t want to change whatever launch date has been decided upon already. It could be that we see the iPhone 6 launch in September still, but availability will be very limited. However, Apple will push the date back if the stock levels just aren’t there.
Rushing production to meet a deadline is risky. There’s every chance a different fault will be overlooked or even introduced, and Apple will want to avoid another embarrassment like the issue with brand new iPhone 5 handsets being damaged on arrival back in 2012.