M68000

tht said:

"[The] the company is preparing a major shake-up for the iPhone's 20-year anniversary," it says, "including a foldable version and a bold new Pro model that makes more extensive use of glass."

There are things they can do with the iPhone design, but not sure there is anything major left though. I don't think there is any, but who knows.

Saying "major shake-up" is a tabloidization from Gurman. He does that all the time, using overly dramatic words. What he calls major is a "meh" a lot of the time. I do not think the iOS 6 to iOS 7 GUI change was a major-shakeup. I do not think the iPhone 8 to iPhone X design was a major shakeup, or major change. Even Touch ID to Face ID, which changed a lot of the UI design and handling qualities of the phones and tablets was just another gradual UI change.

A major shake-up to me is the Intel to Apple Silicon change. Going from the Obj-C frameworks (AppKit, UIKit) to Swift frameworks (Swift, SwiftUI) is a gigantic change. I think Apple is still suffering from this actually. Forstall to Federighi has been monumental, with some pretty big pluses and minuses.

Don't think this iPhone XX will be a major shakeup. It's a handheld tablet or slate device with touch UI using icons, menus, buttons, etc. It might fold, but you are using it the same way still.

Here is a wishlist, or perhaps a list of features that might be good:

1. Glass that doesn't crack, doesn't scratch. These are opposable properties of glass design. Given that it's been almost 2 decades, obviously a difficult problem. This feature is huge for users, imo. The last great feature that benefits everyone.
2. Glass that doesn't show fingerprints and always smooth to the touch. Fingerprints obscure the display. Would be great if there wasn't any. The amount of time it would save Apple Store employees wiping down the display every hour is probably worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year.
3. Solar PV everywhere, front and back, and magnetically latched folio cases with Smart Connectors that have solar PV in them. Still a bit into the future. The solar PV can trickle charge, extending runtime. Leave it out in the sun give it a charge. It would be comfort when using your phone in sunlight, where its display is at 100% brightness, and it is getting some juice from the sun as well.
4. LFP batteries. Regular lithium-ion batteries have a cycle of life of about 500 cycles, for about 3 years of typical use before charge capacity goes down to less than 80%. LFP batteries can go 5000 cycles.
5. MVNO with sat-comm service. They can guarantee E2EE, service anywhere in the world (except underground, concrete rooms, and Faraday cages). Governments likely will not allow it.
6. Hand and eye tracking. May have to add another Face ID sensor cluster here. As a UI feature, just interesting.
7. Ceramic case design, like they did with the Apple Watch. They can really amp up color saturation, use pastel colors, etc.
8. Sheet-metal case design. Like with cars, the paint job could be quite interesting. Radio performance kills the idea.

I'm really looking forward to the iPhone 17 Air. Using my iP12 without a case definitely has me thinking thinner is better.