WSJ: Apple plans to build 25M thinner, lighter next-gen iPhones this year - Page 2

Unless the Galaxy SII has 4G capability......

Not true BECAUSE they don't reduce the data plans for a non-subsidized phone. You will be paying for the data plan regardless of what you pay for the phone so that is a sunk cost. The phone price is marginal and so affect the decision.

For the small, small minority of the country with access to a 4G network...

why can't we get our home ISP's to subsidize the cost of our laptops/desktops?
if i can get a motorolla DVR cable box for $15/month w/UVerse, why can't i get a MacBook Air for $30/month or a Mini for $15/month - and just send them back for a "free" upgrade when they're outdated.

Bigger screen? Very questionable. Think about it - Apple will not change the number of pixels unless they are doubling again, which is impossible right now. To increase screen size without changing the number of pixels would mean decreasing DPI and therefore regressing from Retina Display. Would Apple do that? Really?

Not bizarre at all. A lighter phone serves little purpose. Anyone who finds a smartphone too heavy has other problems. Thinness, on the other hand, enhances function and form. But, will the new 8MP sensors fit in a thinner phone?

They could decrease the DPI a bit without giving up the 'Retina' claim, a few percent bigger screen area, which is all they'd get anyway from reducing the margins. It seems plausible.

Maybe not in your market, but some operators certainly do reduce the monthly pay on cheaper phones. For the luxury phone they force you to buy a package that includes far more minutes/texts/GB than you need.

Amen, brotha!

And I don't think thinner is necessarily better. Try holding a piece of paper between your thumb and index finger; not a very reassuring feeling.

If it's too thin, the phone would 'snap' 90-degrees if you squeezed it too hard, unless you were applying equal pressure on both sides. Sounds like it'd be an annoying balancing game.

I find it a little frustrating reading all of these conflicting reports. Does anyone else find Apple is normally much more simple than we give them credit for? For example, the iphone 4's introduction was nothing short of humiliating. It brought with it a very public embarrassment in the form of signal attenuation. Cue a public back tracking, $180 million dollars set aside to make the phone, one of the most highly engineered pieces of electronics on the planet, usable in day to day life with a piece of rubber around it and a sheepish Steve Jobs claiming it wasn't just Apple that had trouble with this. Mark Papermaster lost his job (janitor and the keys anyone?).

With all this in mind as well as Jobs' fierce reputation I think we can get a good feel for what the new iPhone will be like and why it's taken so long. It will undoubtedly have to be a complete redesign. That, we know with the iphone 3g and 3gs cycles, will take time. You can be assured there will be no repeat of the issues with signal. It wouldn't surprise me if it looked different just to differentiate it from iPhone 4.

It is true though that Apple has sold the phone in the millions, some might ask why they need to change it. It has already been admitted that the iphone 4 drops more calls than it's predecessor. Well from a personal viewpoint, the iphone 4 is the worst phone i've ever used. The signal is terrible and that is a direct comparison against the 3gs. A lot of people have never had any issues with it and i'm pleased for them, this is not the case for me. I wouldn't at all be shocked to find that Apple know this too from their work with their carriers. It is unlikely that it is just me who has their calls dropped or not connected where before I had no issues. Surely therefore the redesign will have to be substantial. As for their phones being complex and difficult to manufacture, that's like saying rain gets you wet. It comes with the territory.

Why thinner and lighter? Its not as if our iPhones were as heavy and thick as a brick. A lot of us would rather Apple concentrated on a less expensive, less inclined to break when dropped iPhone with a much longer battery life. A smart designer would give the engineers enough space to build well and fill the rest of a reasonably sized phone with as large a battery as possible.

That would be a marginal gain in screen size, and no gain in image quality. Does Apple do things for marginal gains in specmanship? Not too often, I'd say.

That simply is not uniformly true. I'd say my iP4 is better than my 3GS, but are just worse than my BBs. My Android is the same as my iP4.

Adding a solar charger in there would be nice too.

This isn't just a CPU speed bump, this is something the user interacts with directly, and even a 5-10% bigger screen is relevant. Apple don't care about 'spec' but they do care about performance.

Adding 5% more pixels at the same size would be a pointless spec bump, adding 5% size to the screen within the same device form factor feels a significant performance difference, at least to me.

How on earth do you cope with plates? Cutlery? Pencils?

Does your hand look like this?



(Source :http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/ )

I'm not suggesting that it is a uniform truth. I found a huge drop in signal and phone function after upgrading from the 3GS to 4. I mostly use handsfree, not attenuating the signal with my hand. That has me suspicious I'm not the only one and this is something apple may wish to remedy. Apple and the carriers do monitor dropped calls.
I'm not in a position to comment on other devices. By the by how many phones do you have? A man only needs so many, you seem to have them all

Honestly, I am not all for thinner. The device needs to be a certain thickness to feel comfortable in the hand. I actually prefer the 3GS thickness for that reason.

The quest for thinness sometimes backfires on Apple. For instance, the iPod Shuffle without the controls. That was a flop. We know this because Apple quickly redesigned it.

Exactly. Thinner is not always better. In the case of the iPhone, I think it would be bad. I like it to feel slightly weighted as well.

That wasn't because the device was too thin, that was because the lack of screen was a bigger issue than anticipated. The nano was extremely thin from the start and was hugely popular.

The shuffle is a really good example though of Apple pushing a successful product downmarket to deny competitors space to grow.

the ip4 could be a touch thinner



9

That's... a good one.

I use iP4 as my phone, replacing my 3GS. But I know that I can get reception with my iP4 in places where the 3GS did not work. Now, the 3GS is essentially an iPod Touch for me. My Samsung Nexus S is my "spare" phone. Prior to these, I used BBs.

Really lame what ifs. Really. The Iphone is no longer made of paper, since Papermaster left the house.

Snap 90 deg? That does not make sense. But my twisted mind can translate your gibberish into a plausible scenario which is only plausible since it was made of paper, which it is NOT (see previous paragraph).

I used to want 64 GB. Then I got a 64GB iPad2. All of a sudden, the main reason for 64 GB (carrying around video to watch) doesn't seem so important. I don't personally feel the need to carry around my 20 GB of audio data with me all the time as it would take months (at the rate I listen to music on an iPhone) to listen to every song just once. A few play lists (5GB) and I'm good to go.

[/quote]
5MP is adequate, but move the flash! I have to remove the case to take a flash picture, due to flash reflection.

Slight increase in screen would be welcome.
[/quote]
I'm coming from a 3GS, so I'd be getting that anyway


Bluetooth headset helps a lot here.

He still hasn't answered how he copes with cutlery

huh wha ?? oh boy i did not see the joke at first

my iphone seems like a brick if i hold it for long times .

lol

9

New iPhones. New iPads. It's my wallet that will be thinner and lighter!

The iPhone 5 will be 9mm thin with a slightly larger chassis to support new technology and a larger screen.

The screen will be 4 inches diagonal and will sport a high definition resolution of 1080x720p. This will be the first HD iPhone, and iOS 5 will be able to optimize apps to work with this higher resolution in much the same way OS X can optimize apps for screen sizes ranging from 11 inches to 30 inches.

It will have a dual mode wireless radio and the one phone will be sold on all major US carriers. Not only that but the phone will support HSPA+ meaning that this will be the first "4G" iPhone and T-Mobile and AT&T will have it activated. Verizon is already preparing for this by readying an ad campaign claiming their 3G iPhone is better than AT&T and T-Mobile's 4G iPhone.

It will have a 8 megapixel camera and will be able to shoot video in 1080p as well as shoot stills with much higher clarity and vibrancy. It will also have an A5 chip with the faster graphics processor we first saw in the iPad. Apple will use this for highly involved video and photo editing.

Battery life on the new iPhone will also be stellar because of new software and hardware advances. It will be announced in late September and sold shorty afterward.

Source: An Anonymous Analysts with connections to Anonymous Apple Employees close to the development.

You don't actually believe those clowns, do you?


I don't see a "Retina-er Display" any time soon.

It shall be your thinnest wallet ever!

HSPA+ is totally not 4G but AT&T and T-Mobile advertise it as such. I remember watching the new Samsung Infuse 4G commercials thinking that it must've been one of AT&T's new LTE phones. I looked it up and saw it was HSPA+...

My whole posts was a sarcastic take on how these "Analyst" seem to come up with this "secret" info from their arses.

They need sued. For hundreds of millions of dollars. By the government itself, for heaven's sake.

Otherwise, I'll just start my own company, claim to be selling something, and get away with taking people's money for free. If I'm brought to court, I should just be able to say, "It's legal to lie to customers."

My whole posts was a sarcastic take on how these "Analyst" seem to come up with this "secret" info from their arses.[/QUOTE]

Ah, I see. You did VERY well. I was half ready to post something like, "No big surprises here; we already know EVERYTHING you've said."

Again, you did that VERY well.

Thinner, lighter, faster, sleeker = a win-win for Apple & us Imaniacs. But sit tight Apple has more surprises in store. True the new IPhone5 will be more about IOS 5 but lets not count out some great hardware surprises as well.