5 New Patents That Hint at Future iPhone Plans

Thanks to supply chain rumors and analyst predictions, we already know quite a bit about this year’s upcoming iPhone lineup. Some of those even give us a glimpse at Apple’s tentative plans for lineups beyond this year.

But there is another source of information about Apple’s products: patents. This week, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published a handful of patent applications filed by Apple, and many of them relate to future technology or designs that could end up in an upcoming iPhone. While there’s no guarantee any of these will hit the market, they can give us a sneak peek into what Apple might be planning for its iPhone lineup.