Then at the end Steve Jobs comes out and says 'Oh and 1 more thing....here is the iPhone 5 with the same specs as the 4S for those of you who want a bigger screen. And we mananged to keep the retina display too!"
'And we have a new message service. It's for free. And face time does not count towards your data usage. And we actually eliminated the carrier networks. So you'll have endless call time.
Oh, and it works great with AppleTV. Now you can watch your favorite movie while on a conference call with your friends from over the world. And conference video call as well. And while you're on the phone, just send your photo or file immediately. No need to create an email or sending a mms parallel to your call.' (just bumping out of bounds with my mind)
'One more thing: this is how you pay with your phone. With iCoins'
'And we have a new message service. It's for free. And face time does not count towards your data usage. And we actually eliminated the carrier networks. So you'll have endless call time.
Oh, and it works great with AppleTV. Now you can watch your favorite movie while on a conference call with your friends from over the world. And conference video call as well. And while you're on the phone, just send your photo or file immediately. No need to create an email or sending a mms parallel to your call.' (just bumping out of bounds with my mind)
'One more thing: this is how you pay with your phone. With iCoins'
While reading your post I was thinking you were going to make a point. But it never came.
apple should just buy out sprint, in total, and while fixing their network, slowly convert all the at&t's and verizon's to the new player in the game.
apple surely has enough money. it will be sticky at the start but it would be revolutionary and eventually let at&t and verizon know that the game can be played in many ways.
The struggle and delay of the IP5 all along has been about 4G. Cook said it in April that it is going to take some time to get good chipsets for LTE, and I posted in July that I was convinced the "delay" was related to 4G implementation.
With Sprint we have a carrier that has a more mature, next-gen network (Wimax) that is relatively easy to implement the technology for. I believe Apple is now willing to "fork" the iPhone for large enough orders (like for China - wait and see). And for a guaranteed sale of 30 million devices, YES, Apple will happily fork the design!
The World Phone is a great idea but there are too many network standards right now to make a decent, lightweight universal phone, and the chips are not yet up to Apple standards. But there is lots of money to be made by Apple in 2011-2012 on these custom phones, before everything becomes standardized on LTE and the IP6 World Phone can be built.
Whether we will call the Sprint phone IP5 or not is irrelevant. It will be a different phone. So what? All the software and functionality of the phone will be the same. Apple does not define itself by the stupid phone network - who cares what network standard they use? Speed is something Apple has rarely emphasized in the Jobs era. Apple is all about the user experience.
Are you saying is a Sprint Wimax iP5 MUST come out the same time as a Verizon and ATT LTE iP5?
IF your presumption is that the Sprint phone is LTE also, yes makes sense Apple would not delay ATT/Verizon iP5 just for Sprint. But what if they are not all 3 LTE? I know, I know, but what if?
Then it would STILL be INCREDIBLY stupid for Apple to accommodate Apple by devoting scarce production resources to making a less profitable device rather than a more profitable one.
But for some on here its just having some fun speculationg back and forth... waste time at work
At least that confirms my feeling that you have no business sense. Go back to being the pointless counterpoint to the rest of the world's obvious fake story, and wasting your employer's money.
apple should just buy out sprint, in total, and while fixing their network, slowly convert all the at&t's and verizon's to the new player in the game.
apple surely has enough money. it will be sticky at the start but it would be revolutionary and eventually let at&t and verizon know that the game can be played in many ways.
Yes, that would be great. Profitability plunges, stock price cut in half, and ATT and Verizon stop buying iPhones.
apple should just buy out sprint, in total, and while fixing their network, slowly convert all the at&t's and verizon's to the new player in the game.
apple surely has enough money. it will be sticky at the start but it would be revolutionary and eventually let at&t and verizon know that the game can be played in many ways.
Apple is successful because of their focus. They focus on what they do well, and what makes sense to them. Being a carrier does not make sense to them.
I agree, to an extent. Ergo, it's more sensible to assume something is wrong with the details of the story, rather than the accountants being stupid.
Yep - or stated more forcefully - more likely that unnamed sources being quoted by amateur writers on a rumor website are incorrect than business people paid millions to make the best decision about billions of dollars.
Oh yeah - and Betamax is better than VHS, just you wait and see.
Betamax totally was the better technology of the two, FWIW. The marketing battle story is interesting and was followed by a whole series of Sony proprietary techs that never gained traction, e.g., ATRACS, memory sticks, etc. Until they won one as part of a consortium with Blu-Ray, unfortunately for them, tho' at the sunset of physical optical media.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stelligent
Wonder if Obama already has the new iPhone 5. He got the iPad early from Jobs.
He did, but he left it in a bar in San Francisco.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Akac
Personally I think it makes sense. LTE chip sets are not near being usable yet. The iPhone 5 may already be ready, except for LTE. Sprint has had WiMax for a long time now so their chipsets are more mature.
We already know there is no LTE iPhone coming until next year. So at best all this does is give Sprint a 4G iPhone sooner.
If the the 4S/5/whatever is going to support HSPA+ (a mature chipset) that gives AT&T a further leg up on Verizon for net speed (along with simultaneous data/voice) until the next iteration. If WiMax chips are small and power-sipping as well, that could make the next iPhone "semi-4G" on some networks but not others.
And that would have marketing/sales consequences for carriers. Verizon certainly wouldn't enjoy being the only 3G-capped US carrier of the new phone.
Which raises another possibililty in the one phone/two phone 4S/5 fevered speculation: Apple is waiting for an LTE chipset that meets their specs and expect it early next year, meaning the iPhone 5 could follow on only months after the 4S - in much the same shell as the 4S.....
Then it would STILL be INCREDIBLY stupid for Apple to accommodate Apple by devoting scarce production resources to making a less profitable device rather than a more profitable one.
Well, I am not sure Apple still has "scarce" production resources. More than 25M devices (current capacity) a quarter is hardly scarce, and I assume they are still increasing capacity.
At this point they are probably seeking additional opportunities, and a guaranteed order of 30M/$20B, ON TOP OF THEIR EXISTING VOLUME, would make any manufacturer, even Apple, drool. That is the size of an entire large corporation - bigger than all of Apple for most of its history.
Guys, there is nothing 'cool', 'smart' or 'savvy' about this. A move like this would be, if Apple actually did it, one of THE most idiotic business moves of the year if not decade. That said, it's just a dumb idea and a really bizarro story that somebody dreamed up. Just think about it. In order to believe this is true, one has to accept that:
1) Apple would spend the last 16 months developing a new and groundbreaking design, and then intentionally tie it to a carrier who represents < 18% of the subscriber market in the US, AND:
2) That Apple would do this just because that carrier promissed to buy 30.5 million phones over a four year period (just 7.6 million a year), DESPITE:
3) The fact that AT&T and Verizon sell about 24 million iPhones a year, which would be 116 million devices over the same four year period (as opposed to 30), and DESPITE:
4) The fact that it would immediately anger millions upon millions of customers who are currently locked into contracts with Verizon and / or AT&T but who would otherwise be eligible for early upgrades, and DESPITE:
5) The fact that it would massively alienate their current carrier partners.
It's just a stupid, STUPID story, with a capital 'S'.
I agree the details do not fit. BUt there's something to the Sprint story. WSJ almost always releases some juicy and accurate tidbits on the day before or the day of an Apple show-n-tell. In fact, they must have had the story before hand but agreed to hold off until the last minute. All to say, there's some kind of a deal between Sprint and Apple. Could be as simple as Sprint having to pre-commit to a certain sales figure before Apple would support them. After all, if Apple is going to offer a Spring iPhone, they will eventually have to support Wimax. The commitment may simply be the enticement for Apple to start working on it sooner rather than later.
As for BGR, I don't buy that he decided against running his story until WSJ. I believe more that he took the WSJ lead and embellished it with other possibly relevant rumors.
Yep - or stated more forcefully - more likely that unnamed sources being quoted by amateur writers on a rumor website are incorrect than business people paid millions to make the best decision about billions of dollars.
Geez man, are you vying to become the model of a run-on sentence?
Well, I am not sure Apple still has "scarce" production resources. More than 25M devices (current capacity) a quarter is hardly scarce, and I assume they are still increasing capacity.
Yeah, it's scarce. Sorry you don't understand.
Quote:
At this point they are probably seeking additional opportunities, and a guaranteed order of 30M/$20B, ON TOP OF THEIR EXISTING VOLUME, would make any manufacturer, even Apple, drool. That is the size of an entire large corporation - bigger than all of Apple for most of its history.
It's not anything guaranteed. First of all, it's guaranteed to COST them sales if they don't allow Verizon and ATT to have a new iPhone. Dumb.
Second, Sprint isn't guaranteed to be a going concern in 4 years.
Third, just as many Sprint users will buy the iphone if it's available on Sprint AND Verizon AND ATT as will buy it if it's only on spring. Do you think zero users will buy it on Verizon and ATT, to make this deal smart? Dumb.
"The addition of Sprint would make Apple's hot-selling handset available on the three largest carriers in the U.S. That would only leave out T-Mobile among the "big four," though AT&T hopes to acquire T-Mobile with regulatory approval."
Now that you can buy an unlocked Iphone, T-Mobile should just offer to reimburse a few hundred bucks if you sign a 2 or 3 year contract. Why do they need to directly sell the iPhone? Seems like a pretty simple and effective work-around to me.
Comments
It makes no sense at all. Sprint has a small fraction of the customer base of ATT and Verizon. We nearly have a duopoly in the US.
Well I agree, but perhaps a duopoly does Apple no good...and they know that.
I hope this is true because I've been camping out in front of my Sprint store for the last month.
Is a flag pole involved?
Then at the end Steve Jobs comes out and says 'Oh and 1 more thing....here is the iPhone 5 with the same specs as the 4S for those of you who want a bigger screen. And we mananged to keep the retina display too!"
'And we have a new message service. It's for free. And face time does not count towards your data usage. And we actually eliminated the carrier networks. So you'll have endless call time.
Oh, and it works great with AppleTV. Now you can watch your favorite movie while on a conference call with your friends from over the world. And conference video call as well. And while you're on the phone, just send your photo or file immediately. No need to create an email or sending a mms parallel to your call.' (just bumping out of bounds with my mind)
'One more thing: this is how you pay with your phone. With iCoins'
Perhaps it's just an exclusivity on unlimited plans for a year at pricing far below AT&T and Verizon.
'And we have a new message service. It's for free. And face time does not count towards your data usage. And we actually eliminated the carrier networks. So you'll have endless call time.
Oh, and it works great with AppleTV. Now you can watch your favorite movie while on a conference call with your friends from over the world. And conference video call as well. And while you're on the phone, just send your photo or file immediately. No need to create an email or sending a mms parallel to your call.' (just bumping out of bounds with my mind)
'One more thing: this is how you pay with your phone. With iCoins'
While reading your post I was thinking you were going to make a point. But it never came.
apple surely has enough money. it will be sticky at the start but it would be revolutionary and eventually let at&t and verizon know that the game can be played in many ways.
With Sprint we have a carrier that has a more mature, next-gen network (Wimax) that is relatively easy to implement the technology for. I believe Apple is now willing to "fork" the iPhone for large enough orders (like for China - wait and see). And for a guaranteed sale of 30 million devices, YES, Apple will happily fork the design!
The World Phone is a great idea but there are too many network standards right now to make a decent, lightweight universal phone, and the chips are not yet up to Apple standards. But there is lots of money to be made by Apple in 2011-2012 on these custom phones, before everything becomes standardized on LTE and the IP6 World Phone can be built.
Whether we will call the Sprint phone IP5 or not is irrelevant. It will be a different phone. So what? All the software and functionality of the phone will be the same. Apple does not define itself by the stupid phone network - who cares what network standard they use? Speed is something Apple has rarely emphasized in the Jobs era. Apple is all about the user experience.
Why do we assume that this is a bad deal? Why don't we assume they have done the math and see it as a reasonable risk?
Because the deal, as stated, IS a bad deal for Apple.
It'd make perfect sense for all parties if they dropped the exclusive bit, and that's why that's the true story.
Are you saying is a Sprint Wimax iP5 MUST come out the same time as a Verizon and ATT LTE iP5?
IF your presumption is that the Sprint phone is LTE also, yes makes sense Apple would not delay ATT/Verizon iP5 just for Sprint. But what if they are not all 3 LTE? I know, I know, but what if?
Then it would STILL be INCREDIBLY stupid for Apple to accommodate Apple by devoting scarce production resources to making a less profitable device rather than a more profitable one.
You need to give it up, you don't have a clue.
What you say may be true if it is correct.
But for some on here its just having some fun speculationg back and forth... waste time at work
At least that confirms my feeling that you have no business sense. Go back to being the pointless counterpoint to the rest of the world's obvious fake story, and wasting your employer's money.
Because the deal, as stated, IS a bad deal for Apple.
It'd make perfect sense for all parties if they dropped the exclusive bit, and that's why that's the true story.
I agree, to an extent. Ergo, it's more sensible to assume something is wrong with the details of the story, rather than the accountants being stupid.
apple should just buy out sprint, in total, and while fixing their network, slowly convert all the at&t's and verizon's to the new player in the game.
apple surely has enough money. it will be sticky at the start but it would be revolutionary and eventually let at&t and verizon know that the game can be played in many ways.
Yes, that would be great. Profitability plunges, stock price cut in half, and ATT and Verizon stop buying iPhones.
You my friend are brilliant.
apple should just buy out sprint, in total, and while fixing their network, slowly convert all the at&t's and verizon's to the new player in the game.
apple surely has enough money. it will be sticky at the start but it would be revolutionary and eventually let at&t and verizon know that the game can be played in many ways.
Apple is successful because of their focus. They focus on what they do well, and what makes sense to them. Being a carrier does not make sense to them.
I agree, to an extent. Ergo, it's more sensible to assume something is wrong with the details of the story, rather than the accountants being stupid.
Yep - or stated more forcefully - more likely that unnamed sources being quoted by amateur writers on a rumor website are incorrect than business people paid millions to make the best decision about billions of dollars.
Oh yeah - and Betamax is better than VHS, just you wait and see.
Betamax totally was the better technology of the two, FWIW. The marketing battle story is interesting and was followed by a whole series of Sony proprietary techs that never gained traction, e.g., ATRACS, memory sticks, etc. Until they won one as part of a consortium with Blu-Ray, unfortunately for them, tho' at the sunset of physical optical media.
Wonder if Obama already has the new iPhone 5. He got the iPad early from Jobs.
He did, but he left it in a bar in San Francisco.
Personally I think it makes sense. LTE chip sets are not near being usable yet. The iPhone 5 may already be ready, except for LTE. Sprint has had WiMax for a long time now so their chipsets are more mature.
We already know there is no LTE iPhone coming until next year. So at best all this does is give Sprint a 4G iPhone sooner.
If the the 4S/5/whatever is going to support HSPA+ (a mature chipset) that gives AT&T a further leg up on Verizon for net speed (along with simultaneous data/voice) until the next iteration. If WiMax chips are small and power-sipping as well, that could make the next iPhone "semi-4G" on some networks but not others.
And that would have marketing/sales consequences for carriers. Verizon certainly wouldn't enjoy being the only 3G-capped US carrier of the new phone.
Which raises another possibililty in the one phone/two phone 4S/5 fevered speculation: Apple is waiting for an LTE chipset that meets their specs and expect it early next year, meaning the iPhone 5 could follow on only months after the 4S - in much the same shell as the 4S.....
....my two air-cents......
Then it would STILL be INCREDIBLY stupid for Apple to accommodate Apple by devoting scarce production resources to making a less profitable device rather than a more profitable one.
Well, I am not sure Apple still has "scarce" production resources. More than 25M devices (current capacity) a quarter is hardly scarce, and I assume they are still increasing capacity.
At this point they are probably seeking additional opportunities, and a guaranteed order of 30M/$20B, ON TOP OF THEIR EXISTING VOLUME, would make any manufacturer, even Apple, drool. That is the size of an entire large corporation - bigger than all of Apple for most of its history.
Apple will find a way.
Guys, there is nothing 'cool', 'smart' or 'savvy' about this. A move like this would be, if Apple actually did it, one of THE most idiotic business moves of the year if not decade. That said, it's just a dumb idea and a really bizarro story that somebody dreamed up. Just think about it. In order to believe this is true, one has to accept that:
1) Apple would spend the last 16 months developing a new and groundbreaking design, and then intentionally tie it to a carrier who represents < 18% of the subscriber market in the US, AND:
2) That Apple would do this just because that carrier promissed to buy 30.5 million phones over a four year period (just 7.6 million a year), DESPITE:
3) The fact that AT&T and Verizon sell about 24 million iPhones a year, which would be 116 million devices over the same four year period (as opposed to 30), and DESPITE:
4) The fact that it would immediately anger millions upon millions of customers who are currently locked into contracts with Verizon and / or AT&T but who would otherwise be eligible for early upgrades, and DESPITE:
5) The fact that it would massively alienate their current carrier partners.
It's just a stupid, STUPID story, with a capital 'S'.
I agree the details do not fit. BUt there's something to the Sprint story. WSJ almost always releases some juicy and accurate tidbits on the day before or the day of an Apple show-n-tell. In fact, they must have had the story before hand but agreed to hold off until the last minute. All to say, there's some kind of a deal between Sprint and Apple. Could be as simple as Sprint having to pre-commit to a certain sales figure before Apple would support them. After all, if Apple is going to offer a Spring iPhone, they will eventually have to support Wimax. The commitment may simply be the enticement for Apple to start working on it sooner rather than later.
As for BGR, I don't buy that he decided against running his story until WSJ. I believe more that he took the WSJ lead and embellished it with other possibly relevant rumors.
Yep - or stated more forcefully - more likely that unnamed sources being quoted by amateur writers on a rumor website are incorrect than business people paid millions to make the best decision about billions of dollars.
Geez man, are you vying to become the model of a run-on sentence?
Well, I am not sure Apple still has "scarce" production resources. More than 25M devices (current capacity) a quarter is hardly scarce, and I assume they are still increasing capacity.
Yeah, it's scarce. Sorry you don't understand.
At this point they are probably seeking additional opportunities, and a guaranteed order of 30M/$20B, ON TOP OF THEIR EXISTING VOLUME, would make any manufacturer, even Apple, drool. That is the size of an entire large corporation - bigger than all of Apple for most of its history.
It's not anything guaranteed. First of all, it's guaranteed to COST them sales if they don't allow Verizon and ATT to have a new iPhone. Dumb.
Second, Sprint isn't guaranteed to be a going concern in 4 years.
Third, just as many Sprint users will buy the iphone if it's available on Sprint AND Verizon AND ATT as will buy it if it's only on spring. Do you think zero users will buy it on Verizon and ATT, to make this deal smart? Dumb.
Apple will find a way.
Thankfully, you're wrong.
Now that you can buy an unlocked Iphone, T-Mobile should just offer to reimburse a few hundred bucks if you sign a 2 or 3 year contract. Why do they need to directly sell the iPhone? Seems like a pretty simple and effective work-around to me.