Hot on the heels of my colleague Jim Karpen's post on the molds for the iPhone 6 comes an actual photo of the alleged iPhone 6 front panel, courtesy of a Sina weibo user (via iPhon.fr) There are no "big" surprises, besides the panel being bigger, perhaps 4.7 inches. The folks at iPhone.fr broke out the old Pythagorean theorem to deduce that this could indeed be a 4.7 inch screen. There are rumors of another screen size in the future, up to 5.5 inches even!
The choice of a larger screen size has been Android's "sizeable" advantage. Steve Jobs felt the iPhone screen needed the be small enough that it could be operated with one hand, and even though Apple introduced a larger screen with the iPhone 5, they kept the phone dialing interface scaled down to work with one hand.
Still, a larger screen will help in many areas. Gaming could benefit from the larger real estate. Web pages will be easier to read. As more users perform office-related tasks like word processing, the big screen (and bigger virtual keyboard, especially in landscape mode) will be a plus.
Of course, these photos could be fake, but they are in line with expectations. The timing is right if samples are to be available for an announcement at Apple's WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) starting June 2. Apple will need to educate their developers on how to accommodate a larger screen size, likely in between the iPhone 5 and iPad mini. In the meantime, check with your carrier to make sure you're ready to upgrade!