Apple looking at 5.7-inch iPhone, claims report

Apple is exploring iPhones as large as 5.7 inches, as it feels the heat from large-screen rivals, according to Reuters. The company is considering the introduction of "at least two bigger iPhones next year," the report said.One could sport a 4.7-inch screen and the other a 5.7-incher, Reuters said, citing sources in the Asia supply chain. "Suppliers have been approached with plans for the larger screens," the report claimed, adding that the move is "still under discussion." The motive appears to be a growing need to respond to large-screen smartphones from rival Samsung -- its Galaxy S4 sports a 5-inch screen -- as well as phone-tablet hybrids, aka phablets, which boast even larger screens. Indeed, if Apple offered a 5.7-inch device that would fall into phablet territory.Samsung's Galaxy Note II, for example, has a 5.5-inch screen. There have also been rumors about multi-colored iPhones coming down the pike.In an investors note last week, analyst Brian White cited research suggesting that the low-cost iPhone, aka "iPhone Mini," would come in five different colors.Reuters says Apple is mulling a $99 iPhone, which the company needs for growth in markets like China and India.

Apple logos in backdrop for Samsung in-store display

Without a fantastic investigative journalism budget that would allow me to fly to the Italian store in question on the company jet on a moment's notice, I'm left to assume one of three things has happened here:1. The display was left over from another mobile promotion and only truly nitpicky geeks like us and the folks at All Things D would ever dream of making an issue about a few little icons that only the aforementioned geeks would ever recognize anyway.2. Samsung has a terribly backward understanding of the meaning of the term "product placement."3. Samsung is stalking Apple. It has Korean factories making nothing but black turtlenecks and jeans. It also has that Safari icon tattooed on its buttocks. And sometimes it just slips up.You can decide for yourself what the most likely explanation is, but Samsung doesn't have a great track record here. Back in 2008 it let it slip that a version of Safari was going to be coming to one of its old-school Symbian phones. Turns out they meant "s60 safari," which is a different browser based on some of the same components as Apple's browser, but it still belies the company's apparent ignorance of the concept of a trademark.Well, at least one mystery may have been solved here. Perhaps we now know what became of the errant promotional backdrops for those s60 safari phones.