iPhone 7 will be followed straight away by the iPhone 8, says report, marking huge change in Apple naming system

The 'S' releases have become routine and widely-expected – but they might be about to stop

Employees cheer before the launch of Apple Inc. iPhone SE and iPad Pro 9.7 inch at the company's Omotesando store on March 31, 2016 in Tokyo, Japan (Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)

The next iPhone will be part of a “replacement” cycle that will be followed by a “mega upgrade” next year, according to a new report.

The iPhone 7 is expected to look mostly like the existing iPhone 6 and 6s. But then it will be followed straight away by the iPhone 8, which will mark a huge step away from previous handsets, according to Mark Moskowitz, an analyst at Barclays.

Apple has set a generally accepted rhythm for its iPhone releases, with each major update being followed by a phone that has internal improvements but the same look, and tacks S on the end of the phone’s name. But the new releases could throw out that rhythm entirely.

When the iPhone 7 is released, in September, it will be more like another S phone, according to Barclays. It will include a range of tweaks – such as the removal of the headphone jack, and the addition of a dual-lens camera – but will look largely similar to the existing phones.

That will then be followed straight away by the iPhone 8, the following year, the new report claims. That will be a “mega cycle” upgrade, as opposed to the 7’s “incremental” one, the report claims.

That chimes with similar reports in the past that have claimed that the 7 might only have minimal changes – and then be followed by a phone that might include new screen technology and might be made entirely out of glass, according to often reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.