We're just a few weeks out from the expected launch of Apple's next iPhone, which means the ever-noisy rumor mill is spinning even more quickly than usual. Rather than bombarding you continuously every time a blurry picture of a circuit board leaks, we're going to gather up the most relevant stuff for your perusal, applying a healthy amount of skepticism along the way. This week, the scuttlebutt is about the phone's larger screen, which may be its most obvious and most widely anticipated feature.

Finding resolution

First up, we have some rumors from earlier this week on the screen's resolution—Apple will want to hold on to the "Retina" moniker it's been using for its screens since the iPhone 4, and that means maintaining or beating the 326 PPI density of its current screens. One report, based on a close-up photo of what is supposedly an iPhone display panel, claims a resolution of 1704×960. Another, based on a string found in the latest Xcode 6 beta, claims a resolution of 1472×828.

The new iPhone is rumored to come in two different screen sizes, one 4.7-inch and one 5.5-inch. At 4.7 inches, those rumored resolutions would come out to 416 PPI and 359 PPI, respectively. At 5.5 inches, they would come out to 356 PPI and 307 PPI. Assuming that we do get two different iPhones in two different sizes, it's theoretically possible for both resolutions to be correct: the higher resolution might belong to the 5.5-inch model, while the lower resolution could apply to the 4.7-inch model. At this point there's not a lot of proof one way or the other.

Bumps in the road

In any event, the addition of one or more new iPhone screen sizes and resolutions will likely require developers to make some changes to their apps to support the new displays, as was the case for the iPhone 5 . Among the changes coming with iOS 8 are some changes to UIKit that will make it easier for developers to support multiple screen resolutions and orientations, as outlined in the "Building Adaptive Apps with UIKit" session at this year's WWDC (watch the video in the WWDC app or see a transcript here ). Improving support for multiple screen sizes and resolutions will enable Apple to be more flexible with its display panels, freeing it from the predictable-but-restricting methods it has used up until now.

The second screen-related rumor is one from today claiming that next-generation iPhone production was halted back in June and July to solve a problem with the new phone's backlight. Reuters reports that Apple "wanted to cut back to a single layer of backlight film" to make the new phone thinner but that the screen wasn't bright enough, and it had to be reengineered to use "the standard two layers." According to "supply chain sources," production is "back on track," but the need to redesign the display so close to launch may cause supply shortages.

Even if supply is short, we wouldn't expect it to change Apple's plans—assuming the new phone is introduced on September 9, the timing of past iPhone launches suggests that it will be available on the 17th. However, it may change the way Apple rolls the phone out. When supply is constrained, Apple has been known to limit launch availability to certain countries or to restrict availability in other ways. Take the Retina iPad Mini from last year, for example. When the tablet showed up on November 12, it wasn't available for pickup in Apple's retail stores, and online orders came with a wide shipping window of up to 10 days.

The Reuters report also reiterates the persistent rumor that the 4.7-inch model went to production before the 5.5-inch model, suggesting that the smaller phone will launch slightly before the larger one (or that supplies of the 4.7-inch phone will simply be more plentiful at launch). Again, we can look to last year's iPad launch to see how Apple might handle this situation. Both the iPad Air and Retina iPad Mini were announced on the same day, but the (more plentiful, reportedly easier-to-produce) Air launched on November 1 while the Mini came out nearly two weeks later.

More storage?

Finally, one last tidbit that has nothing to do with the screen: an alleged schematic refers to the existence of an iPhone with 128GB of storage, twice the size of the largest iPhone 5S.

Apple watchers have been waiting for a 128GB iPhone since Apple introduced the 128GB iPad back at the beginning of 2013, but unfortunately it doesn't look like the iPhone models are going to see bumps in storage capacity across the line—it looks like entry-level models will still come with 16GB of storage and that the 128GB model may just be tacked on to the lineup at a higher price than current 64GB models. Given the ever-increasing sizes of apps and high-resolution photos and video, we'd really like to see Apple increase the base capacity to 32GB as some of its competitors have done, but it doesn't appear to be in the cards this time around.

As is always the case with rumors, approach these with caution: we're reporting them here because we think there's a good chance that they're actually true, but they could be based on falsified or out-of-date information. As the next iPhone event approaches, we'll continue to pass on the information that makes the most sense, and we'll be on the ground at the launch to separate fact from fiction.