Could 2016 finally be the year that Apple caves to customer demand and delivers a smartphone with a larger battery? At least one publication thinks that'll be the case when the next iPhone debuts later this year.
Chinese technology site MyDrivers (via Apple Insider) claims the iPhone 7 Plus will ship with a 3,100mAh battery. The current iPhone 6s Plus features a battery with a capacity of 2,750mAh. If true, the iPhone 7 Plus would have a 12 percent larger battery which the publication says would result in up to three additional hours of use.
It's worth pointing out that Apple actually reduced the size of the battery from the iPhone 6 Plus to the iPhone 6s Plus (the former packed a 2,915mAh unit). The more efficient A9 processor allowed the handset to retain the same usage ratings.
MyDrivers also claims the iPhone 7 Plus (notably, not the standard iPhone 7) will include an option for 256GB of local flash storage. Up to this point, the most storage you can get on an iPhone is 128GB. The site added that the 256GB option will be in addition to "the normal ones" which would mean 16GB, 64GB and 128GB variants. It'd make a lot more sense for Apple to finally drop the 16GB offering and bump the 64GB model down to the entry-level slot but I digress.
As always, it's recommended that you take this information with a bit of skepticism. It's still pretty early for rumors of this magnitude, especially considering that we haven't heard anything about Apple's A10 SoC and iOS 10.