There is no reason Apple couldn't go back to it's iTools format, where it gave free email and related services. The reality is many users, myself included would ditch gmail in a heartbeat if Apple went back to giving free online services. iTools used to rock, and it was great advertisement for Apple. Everytime I sent an email, people knew I was a Mac user.
I just sent Jobs an email, explaining that providing these services for free would be a great way to counter Google. It would be one less thing I needed Google for.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Logisticaldron
I hope MobileMe will still have a paid service, too. I don’t want ads, lack of support or all the other horrible things that come with a service being free.
I could see this with maybe a non-retina display at the same size but with almost nothing around the screen. Home button would be replaced with a gesture and the voice control would be much more advanced and also available in the iPhone 5.
BINGO, DING DING DING
workable screen will be defined with the new iPad, ios, phone 5 and phone 5 mini
if the patents are right you don't need dead space screen and phone stays the same size
it also puts a big kicker to the other "touch screen" out there to differentiate the masses
also it can have 8gb storage but higher ram, lower screen res, hey my 3g works great looks great, imagine same thing but more ram and they have made advancements in soc etc
I think the the edge to edge screen design enables this new iPhone to shrink considerably without creating an unusable interface. The screen doesn't have to shrink much at all!
It might even sell better then the regular iPhone. I believe it will be free with a 2 year contract. This is the phone for the masses.
Hopefully they'll take the regular iPhone5's screen edge to edge while keeping the same form factor (or something similar.) This is actually something i've been wanting for some time!
Great Job, what about the option of dropping the home button, then it gets real interesting
I love your post, great comparison helps give perspective
... It is not obvious to me that an extra $100 or so (amortized over 24 months, i.e.,~4/month) matters all that much to most subscribers.
RE amortized costs: consumers seem to be inordantly sensitive to initial cost and inordantly insensitive to term costs. It is stupid, but it is the case even with smart consumers (at least here in the USA--I can't speak for other societies).
I don't understand it either. The iPhone 4 is already small enough, and the initial cost isn't significant when a two year contract is going to be $2400 or so.
All of which means, they probably won't be able to keep up with demand
Anyone who thinks Apple is simply going to make a smaller iPhone is kidding themselves. It's going to have to differentiate itself further than that. I'm thinking this smaller iPhone will have 12 icons per home screen, not 20. Possibly more spread out than the current icons. I think the screen on iPhone nano will be 3" and it will be targeted directly at teens. It will be Apple's NON-Smartphone, and will likely be released in several colors.
This new Apple product will cannibalize both the iPod nano and the iPod touch, some, but if done right will be such a massive hit it will possibly overshadow them.
and as others have pointed out a different experience. With a smaller screen I'm wondering if it would support 3rd party apps at all? Besides the obvious component swap out. 1MP camera, 8GB flash Maybe no gyro or compass? I don't know, but 3rd party Apps would be a feature I'd expect a nano iphone to not support. Maybe this is why they would push MM harder; to reinforce the strengths of the native apps. No third party apps, but you get great email, photos and videos pushed to the cloud, address book synching, music pulled from the cloud, Safari bookmark synching etc.
This really summarizes the difference to the existing iPhone. The new phone would not be a scaled-down iPhone but something different and missing much of the "magic" of the iPhone. This helps to differentiate the existing iPhone from this newcomer with many still preferring to purchase the existing iPhone.
Jobs has commented in relation to other products that Apple will strive to eliminate price umbrellas. I think a less-expensive iPhone is just an extension of this plan with iDevices in general.
This is the first thing I thought also. I'm not sure if they are indeed making a smaller iPhone but there are plenty good reasons to do so.
I think the article gets the it wrong (as do many of the commentators), when they simply imagine a smaller, lighter version of the same iPhone for less money. This is a ridiculous idea. If they could do that they would simply sell the iPhone that way.
It stands to reason that if the iPhone cannot be made substantially smaller without losing some of it's key features, (and it clearly can't), that a smaller iPhone or nano-phone is going to be a different thing altogether. It would of necessity have a different screen size, different UI, different apps and a different purpose in life to match.
The most likely target is the feature-phone, so a smaller iPhone product that does phone, music, photos, and text messaging (and maybe even no apps at first), would be expected if they enter the market. If they can churn out a product like that at a low price or free with subsidy, they will vacuum up large portions of the feature-phone market.
The phone would also serve as a sort of entry level drug to the Apple ecosystem in that everyone needs to have a phone, even those that don't have a smartphone.
What if apple does keep the 3.5 inch screen size and just shrinks the rest down as much as possible? I don't see them ditching the button. I think it's an important part of the iOS experience. They may, however, redesign it a bit. Maybe shrink it a bit. Anywho, here's what I think that will look like:
I'm not sure keeping the 3.5 inch screen will enable to let them make it small enough to really differentiate it.
Looking at these mock ups though, man that bezel on the iPhone 4 is looking HUGE!
While not a well publicized fact, Dick Tracy had very wide wrists. But those who put a Nano on their wrists might be a harbinger of things to come.
Right on! The prototype for the next generation of iPhone is already out amongst us... the iPod Nano! When you put it on your wrist with a Griffin Snap, and add a bluetooth earpiece and Siri, you have all the components of a future iPhone. Store most of your music, photos etc on the cloud and use flash to store your address book, iOS apps. THe Nano already has a big enough battery for what it needs. Data entry/commands via Siri and the earpiece. Hey, it will work! And it will look a lot cooler than Tracy's watch too!
I think the the edge to edge screen design enables this new iPhone to shrink considerably without creating an unusable interface. The screen doesn't have to shrink much at all!
Etc...
Nice mock up but I don't get why the shrunken phone would be any cheaper to manufacture. And can you even get a bumper or case on it without blocking the screen?
Nice mock up but I don't get why the shrunken phone would be any cheaper to manufacture. And can you even get a bumper or case on it without blocking the screen?
I have a case on my iPhone4 that doesn't block any of the bezel whatsoever. Having said that, I don't think apple will keep the iPhone 4's design for the next round, especially if they go this route. I think they'll do an entirely different design. They aren't going to release another phone with the antenna on the outside. Not unless they can fix the issue, even if it's not a big one, it's there.
As far as cost goes there is plenty of corners they can cut. No gyro? No retina display? Previous generation silicon?
Anyone who thinks Apple is simply going to make a smaller iPhone is kidding themselves. It's going to have to differentiate itself further than that. I'm thinking this smaller iPhone will have 12 icons per home screen, not 20. Possibly more spread out than the current icons. I think the screen on iPhone nano will be 3" and it will be targeted directly at teens. It will be Apple's NON-Smartphone, and will likely be released in several colors.
This new Apple product will cannibalize both the iPod nano and the iPod touch, some, but if done right will be such a massive hit it will possibly overshadow them.
I say the home button isn't going anywhere, and they won't make a smaller iPhone. Now, they MIGHT make another phone altogether with Apple's design philosophy in place, but I don't think it'll be an iPhone.
Holy cow! Not only has this been answered already in this thread, it has been answers quite clearly in Apple's history!! The iPod was king, amounting to almost all of Apple's revenue growth when they introduced smaller, cheaper and (yes) less profitable versions. Why would Apple undercut itself? Because if they didn't somebody else would. In the case of phones, somebody else (obviously) already does!
The fallacy is that Apple doesn't care about market share. Sure they do. They want all they can get--but only at a decent profit with a decent product. If this rumor is true, apple must have found a way to make a phone that they like that is much more economical. The debate should be about how that would be possible and what it would be like, not whether Apple would do it or not...
here here!
This is more like it! Every question here deserves some thought.
Your observations make sense to me.
Apple does care about profits but that does not mean they are oblivious to marketshare or market opportunities. Jobs has commented several times about creating no price umbrella when discussing the iPod and iPad and, maybe even, the MBA. Such a price umbrella does exist in the iPhone world where there is a substantial difference between the lowest price unsubsidized iPhone and the lowest price Android phone. Besides, some people just want a good phone without the need for a lot of data services. Not to mention, this is a phone that could do well in emerging markets like China, India and Brazil. Apple could sell this phone to people who would never consider the current iPhone due to cost and is willing to gamble that it won't pull too much business from the existing iPhone.
As for profit, I suspect that Apple will have plenty of margin but, given the lower selling price, fewer margin dollars per phone. Apple would be expecting to trade those high margin dollars for a substantial increase in phone sales at a lower price.
Right on! The prototype for the next generation of iPhone is already out amongst us... the iPod Nano! When you put it on your wrist with a Griffin Snap, and add a bluetooth earpiece and Siri, you have all the components of a future iPhone. Store most of your music, photos etc on the cloud and use flash to store your address book, iOS apps. THe Nano already has a big enough battery for what it needs. Data entry/commands via Siri and the earpiece. Hey, it will work! And it will look a lot cooler than Tracy's watch too!
-Eric
This is the only thing that makes sense.
The other prototypes of an edge-to-edge screen on a phone will never work, because if you hold it in your left hand (if you're a righty) your fingertips will spill over onto the screen and confuse the touch sensors.
And if it's acceptable to shrink down the iPhone UI and it's still usable, there should be no more arguments about making a smaller sized iPad, either.
No offense, but I don't see a smaller iPhone (if real) validating a smaller version of the iPad as they are both designed for different markets and uses.
am i the only one who thinks that this is a stupid idea?!
releasing a cheaper iphone only serves to undercut their own business model. apple doesn't need and has never really needed market share since they've focused on profit margins. releasing a cheaper iphone will probably mean that a significant portion of their own customer base would go for the cheaper model when they next purchase a phone and therefore reduce income for Apple. Of course, I don't know the estimated profit margin on each unit sold, but still...
Since this phone is likely to be substantially less capable than the current iPhone, I don't think that Apple would direct that many high-margin sales to this lower-cost design. Apple understands market segmentation and product differentiation as well as any company - you need look only as far as the iPod to see that.
I'd expect this phone to still have healthy margins even though it will not deliver the same margin dollars.
Seems to have worked in the iPod arena. Apple owns the top end of the market. It now wants to own the middle as well. If it had bluetooth and integrated with Mac applications like the address book, my girlfriend would be interested.
Many people do not want a data plan, nor do they want to be tied to a contract. That is why I am using an unlocked phone.
Further, Apple needs to keep its stores with new and interesting things.
Yep. This appears to be a re-enactment of the iPod strategy - not a something for everyone mess like Dell, but enough choices to draw a new customer who would never have considered the existing iPhone.
This is the first thing I thought also. I'm not sure if they are indeed making a smaller iPhone but there are plenty good reasons to do so.
I think the article gets the it wrong (as do many of the commentators), when they simply imagine a smaller, lighter version of the same iPhone for less money. This is a ridiculous idea. If they could do that they would simply sell the iPhone that way.
It stands to reason that if the iPhone cannot be made substantially smaller without losing some of it's key features, (and it clearly can't), that a smaller iPhone or nano-phone is going to be a different thing altogether. It would of necessity have a different screen size, different UI, different apps and a different purpose in life to match.
The most likely target is the feature-phone, so a smaller iPhone product that does phone, music, photos, and text messaging (and maybe even no apps at first), would be expected if they enter the market. If they can churn out a product like that at a low price or free with subsidy, they will vacuum up large portions of the feature-phone market.
The phone would also serve as a sort of entry level drug to the Apple ecosystem in that everyone needs to have a phone, even those that don't have a smartphone.
Right on! The prototype for the next generation of iPhone is already out amongst us... the iPod Nano! When you put it on your wrist with a Griffin Snap, and add a bluetooth earpiece and Siri, you have all the components of a future iPhone. Store most of your music, photos etc on the cloud and use flash to store your address book, iOS apps. THe Nano already has a big enough battery for what it needs. Data entry/commands via Siri and the earpiece. Hey, it will work! And it will look a lot cooler than Tracy's watch too!
Good observation. The iPod Nano may well have been a trial run of the design and is likely the device that will be most cannibalized.
Comments
I just sent Jobs an email, explaining that providing these services for free would be a great way to counter Google. It would be one less thing I needed Google for.
I hope MobileMe will still have a paid service, too. I don’t want ads, lack of support or all the other horrible things that come with a service being free.
I could see this with maybe a non-retina display at the same size but with almost nothing around the screen. Home button would be replaced with a gesture and the voice control would be much more advanced and also available in the iPhone 5.
BINGO, DING DING DING
workable screen will be defined with the new iPad, ios, phone 5 and phone 5 mini
if the patents are right you don't need dead space screen and phone stays the same size
it also puts a big kicker to the other "touch screen" out there to differentiate the masses
also it can have 8gb storage but higher ram, lower screen res, hey my 3g works great looks great, imagine same thing but more ram and they have made advancements in soc etc
I think the the edge to edge screen design enables this new iPhone to shrink considerably without creating an unusable interface. The screen doesn't have to shrink much at all!
It might even sell better then the regular iPhone. I believe it will be free with a 2 year contract. This is the phone for the masses.
Hopefully they'll take the regular iPhone5's screen edge to edge while keeping the same form factor (or something similar.) This is actually something i've been wanting for some time!
Great Job, what about the option of dropping the home button, then it gets real interesting
I love your post, great comparison helps give perspective
... It is not obvious to me that an extra $100 or so (amortized over 24 months, i.e.,~4/month) matters all that much to most subscribers.
RE amortized costs: consumers seem to be inordantly sensitive to initial cost and inordantly insensitive to term costs. It is stupid, but it is the case even with smart consumers (at least here in the USA--I can't speak for other societies).
I don't understand it either. The iPhone 4 is already small enough, and the initial cost isn't significant when a two year contract is going to be $2400 or so.
All of which means, they probably won't be able to keep up with demand
Anyone who thinks Apple is simply going to make a smaller iPhone is kidding themselves. It's going to have to differentiate itself further than that. I'm thinking this smaller iPhone will have 12 icons per home screen, not 20. Possibly more spread out than the current icons. I think the screen on iPhone nano will be 3" and it will be targeted directly at teens. It will be Apple's NON-Smartphone, and will likely be released in several colors.
This new Apple product will cannibalize both the iPod nano and the iPod touch, some, but if done right will be such a massive hit it will possibly overshadow them.
and as others have pointed out a different experience. With a smaller screen I'm wondering if it would support 3rd party apps at all? Besides the obvious component swap out. 1MP camera, 8GB flash Maybe no gyro or compass? I don't know, but 3rd party Apps would be a feature I'd expect a nano iphone to not support. Maybe this is why they would push MM harder; to reinforce the strengths of the native apps. No third party apps, but you get great email, photos and videos pushed to the cloud, address book synching, music pulled from the cloud, Safari bookmark synching etc.
This really summarizes the difference to the existing iPhone. The new phone would not be a scaled-down iPhone but something different and missing much of the "magic" of the iPhone. This helps to differentiate the existing iPhone from this newcomer with many still preferring to purchase the existing iPhone.
Jobs has commented in relation to other products that Apple will strive to eliminate price umbrellas. I think a less-expensive iPhone is just an extension of this plan with iDevices in general.
This is the first thing I thought also. I'm not sure if they are indeed making a smaller iPhone but there are plenty good reasons to do so.
I think the article gets the it wrong (as do many of the commentators), when they simply imagine a smaller, lighter version of the same iPhone for less money. This is a ridiculous idea. If they could do that they would simply sell the iPhone that way.
It stands to reason that if the iPhone cannot be made substantially smaller without losing some of it's key features, (and it clearly can't), that a smaller iPhone or nano-phone is going to be a different thing altogether. It would of necessity have a different screen size, different UI, different apps and a different purpose in life to match.
The most likely target is the feature-phone, so a smaller iPhone product that does phone, music, photos, and text messaging (and maybe even no apps at first), would be expected if they enter the market. If they can churn out a product like that at a low price or free with subsidy, they will vacuum up large portions of the feature-phone market.
The phone would also serve as a sort of entry level drug to the Apple ecosystem in that everyone needs to have a phone, even those that don't have a smartphone.
I'm not sure keeping the 3.5 inch screen will enable to let them make it small enough to really differentiate it.
Looking at these mock ups though, man that bezel on the iPhone 4 is looking HUGE!
While not a well publicized fact, Dick Tracy had very wide wrists. But those who put a Nano on their wrists might be a harbinger of things to come.
Right on! The prototype for the next generation of iPhone is already out amongst us... the iPod Nano! When you put it on your wrist with a Griffin Snap, and add a bluetooth earpiece and Siri, you have all the components of a future iPhone. Store most of your music, photos etc on the cloud and use flash to store your address book, iOS apps. THe Nano already has a big enough battery for what it needs. Data entry/commands via Siri and the earpiece. Hey, it will work! And it will look a lot cooler than Tracy's watch too!
-Eric
I think the the edge to edge screen design enables this new iPhone to shrink considerably without creating an unusable interface. The screen doesn't have to shrink much at all!
Etc...
Nice mock up but I don't get why the shrunken phone would be any cheaper to manufacture. And can you even get a bumper or case on it without blocking the screen?
Nice mock up but I don't get why the shrunken phone would be any cheaper to manufacture. And can you even get a bumper or case on it without blocking the screen?
I have a case on my iPhone4 that doesn't block any of the bezel whatsoever. Having said that, I don't think apple will keep the iPhone 4's design for the next round, especially if they go this route. I think they'll do an entirely different design. They aren't going to release another phone with the antenna on the outside. Not unless they can fix the issue, even if it's not a big one, it's there.
As far as cost goes there is plenty of corners they can cut. No gyro? No retina display? Previous generation silicon?
Don't you dare kill that home button, Apple.
Anyone who thinks Apple is simply going to make a smaller iPhone is kidding themselves. It's going to have to differentiate itself further than that. I'm thinking this smaller iPhone will have 12 icons per home screen, not 20. Possibly more spread out than the current icons. I think the screen on iPhone nano will be 3" and it will be targeted directly at teens. It will be Apple's NON-Smartphone, and will likely be released in several colors.
This new Apple product will cannibalize both the iPod nano and the iPod touch, some, but if done right will be such a massive hit it will possibly overshadow them.
I say the home button isn't going anywhere, and they won't make a smaller iPhone. Now, they MIGHT make another phone altogether with Apple's design philosophy in place, but I don't think it'll be an iPhone.
Holy cow! Not only has this been answered already in this thread, it has been answers quite clearly in Apple's history!! The iPod was king, amounting to almost all of Apple's revenue growth when they introduced smaller, cheaper and (yes) less profitable versions. Why would Apple undercut itself? Because if they didn't somebody else would. In the case of phones, somebody else (obviously) already does!
The fallacy is that Apple doesn't care about market share. Sure they do. They want all they can get--but only at a decent profit with a decent product. If this rumor is true, apple must have found a way to make a phone that they like that is much more economical. The debate should be about how that would be possible and what it would be like, not whether Apple would do it or not...
here here!
This is more like it! Every question here deserves some thought.
Your observations make sense to me.
Apple does care about profits but that does not mean they are oblivious to marketshare or market opportunities. Jobs has commented several times about creating no price umbrella when discussing the iPod and iPad and, maybe even, the MBA. Such a price umbrella does exist in the iPhone world where there is a substantial difference between the lowest price unsubsidized iPhone and the lowest price Android phone. Besides, some people just want a good phone without the need for a lot of data services. Not to mention, this is a phone that could do well in emerging markets like China, India and Brazil. Apple could sell this phone to people who would never consider the current iPhone due to cost and is willing to gamble that it won't pull too much business from the existing iPhone.
As for profit, I suspect that Apple will have plenty of margin but, given the lower selling price, fewer margin dollars per phone. Apple would be expecting to trade those high margin dollars for a substantial increase in phone sales at a lower price.
Right on! The prototype for the next generation of iPhone is already out amongst us... the iPod Nano! When you put it on your wrist with a Griffin Snap, and add a bluetooth earpiece and Siri, you have all the components of a future iPhone. Store most of your music, photos etc on the cloud and use flash to store your address book, iOS apps. THe Nano already has a big enough battery for what it needs. Data entry/commands via Siri and the earpiece. Hey, it will work! And it will look a lot cooler than Tracy's watch too!
-Eric
This is the only thing that makes sense.
The other prototypes of an edge-to-edge screen on a phone will never work, because if you hold it in your left hand (if you're a righty) your fingertips will spill over onto the screen and confuse the touch sensors.
And if it's acceptable to shrink down the iPhone UI and it's still usable, there should be no more arguments about making a smaller sized iPad, either.
No offense, but I don't see a smaller iPhone (if real) validating a smaller version of the iPad as they are both designed for different markets and uses.
am i the only one who thinks that this is a stupid idea?!
releasing a cheaper iphone only serves to undercut their own business model. apple doesn't need and has never really needed market share since they've focused on profit margins. releasing a cheaper iphone will probably mean that a significant portion of their own customer base would go for the cheaper model when they next purchase a phone and therefore reduce income for Apple. Of course, I don't know the estimated profit margin on each unit sold, but still...
Since this phone is likely to be substantially less capable than the current iPhone, I don't think that Apple would direct that many high-margin sales to this lower-cost design. Apple understands market segmentation and product differentiation as well as any company - you need look only as far as the iPod to see that.
I'd expect this phone to still have healthy margins even though it will not deliver the same margin dollars.
Seems to have worked in the iPod arena. Apple owns the top end of the market. It now wants to own the middle as well. If it had bluetooth and integrated with Mac applications like the address book, my girlfriend would be interested.
Many people do not want a data plan, nor do they want to be tied to a contract. That is why I am using an unlocked phone.
Further, Apple needs to keep its stores with new and interesting things.
Yep. This appears to be a re-enactment of the iPod strategy - not a something for everyone mess like Dell, but enough choices to draw a new customer who would never have considered the existing iPhone.
This is the first thing I thought also. I'm not sure if they are indeed making a smaller iPhone but there are plenty good reasons to do so.
I think the article gets the it wrong (as do many of the commentators), when they simply imagine a smaller, lighter version of the same iPhone for less money. This is a ridiculous idea. If they could do that they would simply sell the iPhone that way.
It stands to reason that if the iPhone cannot be made substantially smaller without losing some of it's key features, (and it clearly can't), that a smaller iPhone or nano-phone is going to be a different thing altogether. It would of necessity have a different screen size, different UI, different apps and a different purpose in life to match.
The most likely target is the feature-phone, so a smaller iPhone product that does phone, music, photos, and text messaging (and maybe even no apps at first), would be expected if they enter the market. If they can churn out a product like that at a low price or free with subsidy, they will vacuum up large portions of the feature-phone market.
The phone would also serve as a sort of entry level drug to the Apple ecosystem in that everyone needs to have a phone, even those that don't have a smartphone.
A great summation.
Will it come with a file to whittle down my fingers in order to use it?
No it will come with a little Chinese boy or girl.
Right on! The prototype for the next generation of iPhone is already out amongst us... the iPod Nano! When you put it on your wrist with a Griffin Snap, and add a bluetooth earpiece and Siri, you have all the components of a future iPhone. Store most of your music, photos etc on the cloud and use flash to store your address book, iOS apps. THe Nano already has a big enough battery for what it needs. Data entry/commands via Siri and the earpiece. Hey, it will work! And it will look a lot cooler than Tracy's watch too!
Good observation. The iPod Nano may well have been a trial run of the design and is likely the device that will be most cannibalized.