China Mobile planning for April 2016 launch of ‘iPhone 6c’: reports

China Mobile, the largest mobile telecommunications network of China, is said to be planning an April 2016 launch of a new 4-inch iPhone, a product launch calendar from Apple's carrier partner had revealed, appleinsider.com reported.

The release date for a new, smaller iPhone model is said to be based on a presentation from China Mobile. The site reported that the upper right box of the chart mentioned a new Apple handset launching in April of 2016

While the characters to the right were difficult to read, AppleInsider could confirm that the presentation slide said "Apple" in the text in question. Also, the column above it mentioned the month of April.

GadgetzArena was the first to discover the report.

According to the original report, the anticipated new handset was referred to as an "iPhone 7c," but Apple typically updated its flagship handsets in the fall. It would therefore seem unlikely that a handset branded "iPhone 7c" would debut before an "iPhone 7."

According to commentators, the purported iPhone 6C was said to be an upgraded edition of iPhone 5S.

In the past few months, the rumoured 4-inch iPhone was being referred to as iPhone 6C. The small-sized iPhone would be a low-end smartphone that would be released to replace the iPhone 5S.

The 4-inch display of the iPhone 6C was expected to support a display resolution of 640 x 1136 pixels and support a pixel density of 325 ppi.

The phone would be powered by the Apple A9 chipset that powered the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus smartphones. The SoC would be supported by 2 GB of RAM.

The iPhone 6C will be offered in three colour variants like gold, silver and black, with the handset expected to carry a price tag of 3000 Yuan ($463).

The iPhone 6C would not support new features on the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus smartphones such as 3D Touch. Also rose gold colour variant would not be available on the 4-inch iPhone 6C.