I know I may just be a cat, but I don't think there's any way in Hell Apple's going to eliminate software features for a less expensive iPhone. That would be akin to limiting OS features for a less expensive Mac. The whole premise of the iPhone is that it does all these things in the palm of your hand and to limit that experience is to undermine the fundamental purpose of the platform. They're not about to hobble the golden goose. Also, limiting features is fundamentally un-Apple.
Any handheld device with less function will be an iPod; anything with every current iPhone function and more will be an iPhone.
As for diversifying the product line, future models will include additional hardware (GPS, 3G, 4G, more memory, faster CPU, physical improvements) that will reduce the price of existing models, but not at the expense of features in software.
I've been using Email for the past 7 years and Email was unreliable about that long ago. For at least the past 4-5 years I have never had a problem getting an email delivered.
You're using reliable servers then.
Quote:
I started using Instant Messaging about a year and a half ago and the only times I ever had problems was when I was using a 3rd Party client (Adium doesn't support every Messenger, YIM, AIM, and Google Talk feature that exists for example). I went crazy with SMS when I got my first cell phone in what... 2003 or 2004? Then I realized how pointless it was because with the same phone I can either call the person or if it wasn't urgent just send them an email. It's a limited form of email and the last thing I need is another way to communicate and Instant Messaging can easily take it's place. SMS is just not a great feature and certainly not as great as some would like me to believe.
SMS is great if it's urgent and it's not possible to talk. Are you or is the recipient in a club too loud to hear anything, in a movie theater, or lying next to a sleeping person, or just in a packed, noisy bus and don't feel like shouting your private conversation into the phone next to strangers? Are you at the edges of cellphone availability where the connection is so bad you cannot make an audible call? Do you need to transmit a series of numbers and/or letters exactly, like an access code, an address, an account number? Then text-based communication is natural.
Among the text-based options SMS is the simplest and most reliable. It's supported by every POS phone out there and taking it out wouldn't save anything. It's practically free to send one, even if e-mail with per-MB payment would be cheaper. And it does stuff currently unavailable with IM and email. When I order something like a movie ticket on the phone, they see my number so they automatically send a SMS receipt with a verification number that I can use to pick up physical tickets with. I can even hop on a local bus or train and send a SMS to pay for the trip - I get back an auto-generated SMS with a code that is a valid one-hour ticket. I have occasionally ordered something from a magazine ad through SMS. They'll use your billing address as default shipping address so you just need to write a single word and send it to the right number.
But the biggest issue of why email or IM is not SMS is support. The great majority of phones can't handle IMAP email. Almost no phone handles instant messaging out of the box, and currently out of box is what counts for market penetration. Finally, even if $40 phones like mine will soon get some kind of email support, the 100 spams that just landed in my inbox will kill my ability to read the incoming mail off a 6-row screen.
Instant messaging: again, where's the support? There's a lot of inertia to fight before IM even begins to challenge the plain old phone.
Quote:
The future moneymakers will be data, and hopefully NOT video. I want my phone service provider reduced to the same status as my DSL provider, bandwidth and a basic internet connection. Phone service providers will of course do everything they can to prevent this but it's inevitable for them to drop to the same status as my ISP and if they want to bundle a bunch of extras I don't give a damn. AT&T doesn't charge me for using iChat's Video features and I certainly don't want them or T-Mobile charging me for the same thing just because it would be through a phone.
I wish the same but again, support. We just aren't going to move 100% on IP traffic for many, many years. The best case is if Apple and others can make the method of contact transparent, you just pick video/voice, and the phone figures out if it can reach a given person through IP or if it has to go through the phone network. That would not cause extra trouble for the user and so it would get the transition going as fast as possible.
iPhone mini COULD cost less, though. If you strip out all of it's communication chips except for the one for actual calls (and bluetooth headsets), leaving it with no e-mail, internet, or (I believe also) SMS, so it's simply a phone with an iPod (and its address books, and other non-communications functions), there's at least 2 or 3 chips you can toss, and possibly even the camera (though that would be a good thing to keep in there), it will appeal to many more people, while cutting costs. Even if you keep the SMS feature, it would be cheaper because the WiFi chip and EDGE chips would be gone. Now, we have a phone that's comparable to the average consumer cell phone, rather than a smart phone. With the SMS enabled, Apple still gets money, too - they get money per SMS over the plan, as well as per minute of calls. These are reasons you can really drop the price a lot, and compete in a market that would be more receptive to lower-end cell users, such as teens and lower-middle class to lower class market.
I see it as an inevitability for Apple to come out with an iPhone Mini, beause they obviously have the smartphone covered, but what about consumer phones? It's time to revolutionize this even larger market, as well.
In theory, yes. They can be handled. Even if you had the best possible hardware with you, iPhone, a laptop, etc., how effortless can you make the movie ticket scenario to handle with IM and/or e-mail? Or the bus ticket scenario? With SMS, both involve an automatic micropayment, no registration, no contract, no giving out additional contact information, everything just happens.
Quote:
The great majority right NOW can't handle IMAP or Instant Messaging. The iPhone and any Blackberry on the market can handle Email, most smartphones can, most cheap phones can't. The solution here is to eliminate the cheap phones, that requires changing the entire market and the iPhone is definitely a market changer... hell it's an entire market earthquake (it needs IM though).
Umm, why abandon cheap phones? There's no reason why everything starting from low-priced GPRS phones with small screens couldn't have broad, multi-network IM support, plus bearable text-only e-mail. In fact, if I was a Nokia executive I'd be kicking asses right now to get that done. Obviously anything less than GPRS isn't okay because we want packet switched data.
As for cheap phones, they're just no good and they're not the way phones should be or should evolve.
Dude, just stop insulting my phone!!! It's three years old, dirt cheap and makes great calls. Thats what I wanted it for in the first place and it's great for that!!!
No it does not send email, play music or make me a sandwich but apparantly it is rather hard for you to understand I might not want it to??
iPhone mini COULD cost less, though. If you strip out all of it's communication chips except for the one for actual calls (and bluetooth headsets), leaving it with no e-mail, internet, or (I believe also) SMS, so it's simply a phone with an iPod (and its address books, and other non-communications functions), there's at least 2 or 3 chips you can toss, and possibly even the camera (though that would be a good thing to keep in there), it will appeal to many more people, while cutting costs. Even if you keep the SMS feature, it would be cheaper because the WiFi chip and EDGE chips would be gone. Now, we have a phone that's comparable to the average consumer cell phone, rather than a smart phone. With the SMS enabled, Apple still gets money, too - they get money per SMS over the plan, as well as per minute of calls. These are reasons you can really drop the price a lot, and compete in a market that would be more receptive to lower-end cell users, such as teens and lower-middle class to lower class market.
I see it as an inevitability for Apple to come out with an iPhone Mini, beause they obviously have the smartphone covered, but what about consumer phones? It's time to revolutionize this even larger market, as well.
According to the iSuppli tear-down, the BT chip in the iPhone costs $1.60 and the WiFi radio sets Apple back a cool $6.00.
Using the EDGE radio, there is no further specialized hardware for email, Safari, and SMS. If you toss the EDGE radio it's no longer a phone.
So, yet again (why do I have to keep repeating this?): Apple could toss out everything that isn't involved with being "just a phone"-- WiFi, BT, camera and audio processing-- and save something in the neighborhood of $10 on hardware costs.
After that it's just software and Multi Touch, which is to say a screen and associated electronics, CPU, battery, cell radio, flash memory, RAM, the case and various interconnects.
The simple fact is that the iPhone, as Apple has imagined it, doesn't really scale "down", at the moment. Apple built the smallest, lightest, most compact and efficient platform for Multi Touch that they were capable of.
So there is one possible path to the cheaper, "everyman" iPhone: time, which decreases component prices and lets Apple amortize its costs.
Folks wanting "just a phone" are going to have to look elsewhere, because Apple is clearly not in the "just a phone" business.
It would be cool if, before someone posts that Apple could "leave out the iPod part and cut costs that way", they could actually read what I'm saying and give it some thought.
Here's my take on what the iPhone nano will be like when it comes out.
(Please excuse the fact that this image is in reverse, as my digital camera isn't with me now, so I used the built-in iSight to take this snap of my drawing.)
Take the existing look of the iPhone, same 3 sensors, same materials, same glass front, same aluminum back with chrome Apple logo, and the same black plastic bottom to cover the antennas.
Now, remove all 5 internet functions; stocks, maps, weather, Mail and Safari, and reduce the size of the screen from 3 1/2" to about 2 3/4", and reduce the size of the phone accordingly. You still have room for two more icons in the future, a games icon, and whatever else.
Some people say the iPhone is not a "smartphone", well the iPhone nano is definitely not a smartphone. It's an iPod that can make calls, send texts, and take snaps--all with a cool multi-touch UI under a full screen of glass. Oh, and yes it does video. 4GB and 8GB versions - enjoy.
Anyone who wants to try to tackle a photoshop of this is welcome to try.
And it still costs 90% of what it costs to make a full sized iPhone, but with with most of the software functionality removed Apple would have to charge quite a bit less.
The only cost savings for Apple in what you are suggesting is a six dollar WiFi chip and whatever reduction in cost comes from reducing the screen size slightly. Maybe another $20?
But, in reducing the screen size, that "cool multi-touch UI" isn't nearly as cool, since everything is much more cramped. The thing about a finger touch UI is that there is a lower limit to the usable touch area-- you can't just scale down widgets and keycaps and buttons, without making it harder to use.
So you want Apple to sell a harder to use, much less functional iPhone that costs nearly as much to manufacture. How is that a reasonable proposition for Apple?
So you want Apple to sell a harder to use, much less functional iPhone that costs nearly as much to manufacture.
Yes I do want them to sell such a phone.
For starters though, the only real thing that would be pretty impossible to use on a smaller screen would be the 'qwerty' keyboard, that's why this device could go with a soft T9 equivalent.
Secondly, the storage alone for this device will be halved in price by the time summer '08 rolls around. That's not even taking into account the battery wouldn't be as big, and as the screen is likely the most expensive part of this device, you can bet they'd be saving more than $20 on that. Then you have the raw materials, when you are making millions of something every gram of materials you save adds up, again saving more than you might think.
I'm wouldn't be at all surprised by the time this device is ready for the market--if they go in the direction I think they will for iPhone nano--I'd say they could sell the 4GB version for $349, and the 8GB version for $449.
Or as suggested before, they don't make an iPhone Nano at all. Again, Apple is a Vertically Integrated company and each and every product they make has a place. The iPhone does it's job so well it already fills every niche with it's current design and it would be really difficult to "slim it down" for a market of really cheap phones and the price points you are suggesting are definitely not for consumer cheap phones (even without the subsidy).
Sebastian
While you tablet versus laptop argument may have some weight to it, if you don't think Apple is going to make a more toned down internet-free phone you're eyes are closed. No web, mail or any of that stuff, just for once, and easy to use phone that integrates music seamlessly.
addabox, I do believe that you have already answered your own question.
You rightly point out that taking out a couple of chips hardly has any effect on the cost of the 'phone.
So, to make an "iPhone Mini", Apple does have to come out with a substantially different device:
No WiFi
No Multi-touch screen
No powerful CPU with 128 MB of integrated RAM
No Safari or e-mail
Yup, just a normal mobile phone with music-playing capabilities. Something like the Nokia 6300. I've got one of these and find that appearance-wise, it's a pretty good match for the iPhone (i.e., I think it looks like it could be the iPhone's little brother). However, the audio quality sucks relative to an iPod. I'm waiting for Apple to make a phone like this.
But I fail to see what the problem is? Why do all iPhone models have to have multi-touch? Do you not realise that the current iPhone is a high-end "smartphone" handset and the vast majority of the worldwide mobile handset market is much more "Nokia 6300" than "current iPhone"? I find that the current iPhone is too big and too heavy to comfortably fit in my trouser pocket where I currently put my phone. I think the current iPhone is mighty impressive, but I just don't need or want a handheld computer, mobile phone and iPod in one device. I want a mobile phone and iPod in one device. As soon as Apple make something Nokia 6300 sized with 80 GB of flash storage (about 3-4 years away I reckon), it's mine.
With more and more of these simpler handsets also offering music-playing capabilities, Apple needs to come out with the Nokia 6300-esque "iPhone Mini" pretty soon in order to avoid cannibalisation of the iPod Nano and Shuffle.
For starters though, the only real thing that would be pretty impossible to use on a smaller screen would be the 'qwerty' keyboard, that's why this device could go with a soft T9 equivalent.
Secondly, the storage alone for this device will be halved in price by the time summer '08 rolls around. That's not even taking into account the battery wouldn't be as big, and as the screen is likely the most expensive part of this device, you can bet they'd be saving more than $20 on that. Then you have the raw materials, when you are making millions of something every gram of materials you save adds up, again saving more than you might think.
I'm wouldn't be at all surprised by the time this device is ready for the market--if they go in the direction I think they will for iPhone nano--I'd say they could sell the 4GB version for $349, and the 8GB version for $449.
IMO Apple will never sell a phone with a T9 equivalent. The multi-touch keyboard is part of what makes the iPhone the iPhone, Jobs has been extremely explicit about his disdain for those "tiny little keyboards" that make cell phones so hard to use.
Of course I don't disagree that component costs will be lower by the summer of '08, that's a given. I have no idea what the savings on a slightly smaller screen would be, but it sure as shit isn't going to be $150.
So by the summer of '08, yeah, no doubt Apple will be selling a cheaper iPhone, with specs much like the one they're selling now and better models selling for the current price.
But I don't think it will be any smaller, or throw out software just to pretend to be a "Mini".
But you're still acting like "the internet" and messaging and maps and all are some kind of bolt-on that adds complexity, so that Apple could just jettison those and make "just a phone", which still ignores the basic paradigm that the iPhone represents-- a platform for multi-touch.
Apple didn't really set out to make a phone, which is why expecting them to follow up with "just a phone" doesn't make any sense.
Apple made a handheld computing platform, on which "phone" is a killer app, as is the internet and iPod.
Apple will be forced to make new models because of what Wall Street expects, but I'd be very surprised if they come out with a phone without multi-touch, etc. I don't think the iPhone will be marketed the same way the iPods have been and include several smaller models. I honestly don't know what Apple plans on doing, but I see the situation more like the iMac vs. xMac where Apple wants to include the whole "computer" and not take anything away from the experience i.e. it must have multi-touch and be fun to use and just work. The user interface is the iPhone! and is what makes it special. Without multi-touch the iPhone is nothing and Apple is not about to go backward with their phones. Perhaps I'm wrong but I think Apple is in a bit of a box.
Thank-you. I'm glad somebody gets it.
It's true, it's something of a dilemma-- Apple does need to protect iPod market share with a (more) mass market music phone, but I can't see any good way to get "elegant" into much less than the current iPhone.
If they're really aggressive about bumping up memory and features, so they can drop the price of the previous iteration, they run the risk of creating a market where everyone is waiting for the next "better" model which will be along shortly.
Who knows? Maybe they figured out a way to make a click wheel work for "just a phone" and they'll come at it from the other direction-- an iPod that happens to have a phone in it, rather than the other way around.
You honestly think that Apple won't release a mobile phone that is the same physical size (or similar) to the 6300? You think Apple are going to ignore the other 90% of the mobile phone market that isn't smart-phones? You think Apple are going to sit back and watch Motorola, Nokia and Sony Ericsson eat into iPod market share and not do anything about it? We will see a much smaller iPhone, probably without multi-touch, within 18 months from now.
Problem is that without multi-touch where's the appeal? And how could they charge a premium? An iPhone without multi-touch and stripped of many of the current ipone features starts to rum into the same problems the x Mac runs into when trying to justify it's existence in the Apple product line up. Apple probably won't make devices that cater to the low end market because they can't compete there on price.
Comments
Until we see a 'cost analysis' performed on the iPhone it's tough to even assume that an iPhone-mini will be on the horizon.
Link
Parts cost $200 / $220 for the 4Gb / 8Gb.
Any handheld device with less function will be an iPod; anything with every current iPhone function and more will be an iPhone.
As for diversifying the product line, future models will include additional hardware (GPS, 3G, 4G, more memory, faster CPU, physical improvements) that will reduce the price of existing models, but not at the expense of features in software.
I've been using Email for the past 7 years and Email was unreliable about that long ago. For at least the past 4-5 years I have never had a problem getting an email delivered.
You're using reliable servers then.
I started using Instant Messaging about a year and a half ago and the only times I ever had problems was when I was using a 3rd Party client (Adium doesn't support every Messenger, YIM, AIM, and Google Talk feature that exists for example). I went crazy with SMS when I got my first cell phone in what... 2003 or 2004? Then I realized how pointless it was because with the same phone I can either call the person or if it wasn't urgent just send them an email. It's a limited form of email and the last thing I need is another way to communicate and Instant Messaging can easily take it's place. SMS is just not a great feature and certainly not as great as some would like me to believe.
SMS is great if it's urgent and it's not possible to talk. Are you or is the recipient in a club too loud to hear anything, in a movie theater, or lying next to a sleeping person, or just in a packed, noisy bus and don't feel like shouting your private conversation into the phone next to strangers? Are you at the edges of cellphone availability where the connection is so bad you cannot make an audible call? Do you need to transmit a series of numbers and/or letters exactly, like an access code, an address, an account number? Then text-based communication is natural.
Among the text-based options SMS is the simplest and most reliable. It's supported by every POS phone out there and taking it out wouldn't save anything. It's practically free to send one, even if e-mail with per-MB payment would be cheaper. And it does stuff currently unavailable with IM and email. When I order something like a movie ticket on the phone, they see my number so they automatically send a SMS receipt with a verification number that I can use to pick up physical tickets with. I can even hop on a local bus or train and send a SMS to pay for the trip - I get back an auto-generated SMS with a code that is a valid one-hour ticket. I have occasionally ordered something from a magazine ad through SMS. They'll use your billing address as default shipping address so you just need to write a single word and send it to the right number.
But the biggest issue of why email or IM is not SMS is support. The great majority of phones can't handle IMAP email. Almost no phone handles instant messaging out of the box, and currently out of box is what counts for market penetration. Finally, even if $40 phones like mine will soon get some kind of email support, the 100 spams that just landed in my inbox will kill my ability to read the incoming mail off a 6-row screen.
Instant messaging: again, where's the support? There's a lot of inertia to fight before IM even begins to challenge the plain old phone.
The future moneymakers will be data, and hopefully NOT video. I want my phone service provider reduced to the same status as my DSL provider, bandwidth and a basic internet connection. Phone service providers will of course do everything they can to prevent this but it's inevitable for them to drop to the same status as my ISP and if they want to bundle a bunch of extras I don't give a damn. AT&T doesn't charge me for using iChat's Video features and I certainly don't want them or T-Mobile charging me for the same thing just because it would be through a phone.
I wish the same but again, support. We just aren't going to move 100% on IP traffic for many, many years. The best case is if Apple and others can make the method of contact transparent, you just pick video/voice, and the phone figures out if it can reach a given person through IP or if it has to go through the phone network. That would not cause extra trouble for the user and so it would get the transition going as fast as possible.
I see it as an inevitability for Apple to come out with an iPhone Mini, beause they obviously have the smartphone covered, but what about consumer phones? It's time to revolutionize this even larger market, as well.
All of these can be handled by IM and/or Email.
In theory, yes. They can be handled. Even if you had the best possible hardware with you, iPhone, a laptop, etc., how effortless can you make the movie ticket scenario to handle with IM and/or e-mail? Or the bus ticket scenario? With SMS, both involve an automatic micropayment, no registration, no contract, no giving out additional contact information, everything just happens.
The great majority right NOW can't handle IMAP or Instant Messaging. The iPhone and any Blackberry on the market can handle Email, most smartphones can, most cheap phones can't. The solution here is to eliminate the cheap phones, that requires changing the entire market and the iPhone is definitely a market changer... hell it's an entire market earthquake (it needs IM though).
Umm, why abandon cheap phones? There's no reason why everything starting from low-priced GPRS phones with small screens couldn't have broad, multi-network IM support, plus bearable text-only e-mail. In fact, if I was a Nokia executive I'd be kicking asses right now to get that done. Obviously anything less than GPRS isn't okay because we want packet switched data.
As for cheap phones, they're just no good and they're not the way phones should be or should evolve.
Dude, just stop insulting my phone!!! It's three years old, dirt cheap and makes great calls. Thats what I wanted it for in the first place and it's great for that!!!
No it does not send email, play music or make me a sandwich but apparantly it is rather hard for you to understand I might not want it to??
iPhone mini COULD cost less, though. If you strip out all of it's communication chips except for the one for actual calls (and bluetooth headsets), leaving it with no e-mail, internet, or (I believe also) SMS, so it's simply a phone with an iPod (and its address books, and other non-communications functions), there's at least 2 or 3 chips you can toss, and possibly even the camera (though that would be a good thing to keep in there), it will appeal to many more people, while cutting costs. Even if you keep the SMS feature, it would be cheaper because the WiFi chip and EDGE chips would be gone. Now, we have a phone that's comparable to the average consumer cell phone, rather than a smart phone. With the SMS enabled, Apple still gets money, too - they get money per SMS over the plan, as well as per minute of calls. These are reasons you can really drop the price a lot, and compete in a market that would be more receptive to lower-end cell users, such as teens and lower-middle class to lower class market.
I see it as an inevitability for Apple to come out with an iPhone Mini, beause they obviously have the smartphone covered, but what about consumer phones? It's time to revolutionize this even larger market, as well.
According to the iSuppli tear-down, the BT chip in the iPhone costs $1.60 and the WiFi radio sets Apple back a cool $6.00.
Using the EDGE radio, there is no further specialized hardware for email, Safari, and SMS. If you toss the EDGE radio it's no longer a phone.
So, yet again (why do I have to keep repeating this?): Apple could toss out everything that isn't involved with being "just a phone"-- WiFi, BT, camera and audio processing-- and save something in the neighborhood of $10 on hardware costs.
After that it's just software and Multi Touch, which is to say a screen and associated electronics, CPU, battery, cell radio, flash memory, RAM, the case and various interconnects.
The simple fact is that the iPhone, as Apple has imagined it, doesn't really scale "down", at the moment. Apple built the smallest, lightest, most compact and efficient platform for Multi Touch that they were capable of.
So there is one possible path to the cheaper, "everyman" iPhone: time, which decreases component prices and lets Apple amortize its costs.
Folks wanting "just a phone" are going to have to look elsewhere, because Apple is clearly not in the "just a phone" business.
It would be cool if, before someone posts that Apple could "leave out the iPod part and cut costs that way", they could actually read what I'm saying and give it some thought.
Here's my take on what the iPhone nano will be like when it comes out.
(Please excuse the fact that this image is in reverse, as my digital camera isn't with me now, so I used the built-in iSight to take this snap of my drawing.)
Take the existing look of the iPhone, same 3 sensors, same materials, same glass front, same aluminum back with chrome Apple logo, and the same black plastic bottom to cover the antennas.
Now, remove all 5 internet functions; stocks, maps, weather, Mail and Safari, and reduce the size of the screen from 3 1/2" to about 2 3/4", and reduce the size of the phone accordingly. You still have room for two more icons in the future, a games icon, and whatever else.
Some people say the iPhone is not a "smartphone", well the iPhone nano is definitely not a smartphone. It's an iPod that can make calls, send texts, and take snaps--all with a cool multi-touch UI under a full screen of glass. Oh, and yes it does video. 4GB and 8GB versions - enjoy.
Anyone who wants to try to tackle a photoshop of this is welcome to try.
The only cost savings for Apple in what you are suggesting is a six dollar WiFi chip and whatever reduction in cost comes from reducing the screen size slightly. Maybe another $20?
But, in reducing the screen size, that "cool multi-touch UI" isn't nearly as cool, since everything is much more cramped. The thing about a finger touch UI is that there is a lower limit to the usable touch area-- you can't just scale down widgets and keycaps and buttons, without making it harder to use.
So you want Apple to sell a harder to use, much less functional iPhone that costs nearly as much to manufacture. How is that a reasonable proposition for Apple?
So you want Apple to sell a harder to use, much less functional iPhone that costs nearly as much to manufacture.
Yes I do want them to sell such a phone.
For starters though, the only real thing that would be pretty impossible to use on a smaller screen would be the 'qwerty' keyboard, that's why this device could go with a soft T9 equivalent.
Secondly, the storage alone for this device will be halved in price by the time summer '08 rolls around. That's not even taking into account the battery wouldn't be as big, and as the screen is likely the most expensive part of this device, you can bet they'd be saving more than $20 on that. Then you have the raw materials, when you are making millions of something every gram of materials you save adds up, again saving more than you might think.
I'm wouldn't be at all surprised by the time this device is ready for the market--if they go in the direction I think they will for iPhone nano--I'd say they could sell the 4GB version for $349, and the 8GB version for $449.
Or as suggested before, they don't make an iPhone Nano at all. Again, Apple is a Vertically Integrated company and each and every product they make has a place. The iPhone does it's job so well it already fills every niche with it's current design and it would be really difficult to "slim it down" for a market of really cheap phones and the price points you are suggesting are definitely not for consumer cheap phones (even without the subsidy).
Sebastian
While you tablet versus laptop argument may have some weight to it, if you don't think Apple is going to make a more toned down internet-free phone you're eyes are closed. No web, mail or any of that stuff, just for once, and easy to use phone that integrates music seamlessly.
You rightly point out that taking out a couple of chips hardly has any effect on the cost of the 'phone.
So, to make an "iPhone Mini", Apple does have to come out with a substantially different device:
No WiFi
No Multi-touch screen
No powerful CPU with 128 MB of integrated RAM
No Safari or e-mail
Yup, just a normal mobile phone with music-playing capabilities. Something like the Nokia 6300. I've got one of these and find that appearance-wise, it's a pretty good match for the iPhone (i.e., I think it looks like it could be the iPhone's little brother). However, the audio quality sucks relative to an iPod. I'm waiting for Apple to make a phone like this.
But I fail to see what the problem is? Why do all iPhone models have to have multi-touch? Do you not realise that the current iPhone is a high-end "smartphone" handset and the vast majority of the worldwide mobile handset market is much more "Nokia 6300" than "current iPhone"? I find that the current iPhone is too big and too heavy to comfortably fit in my trouser pocket where I currently put my phone. I think the current iPhone is mighty impressive, but I just don't need or want a handheld computer, mobile phone and iPod in one device. I want a mobile phone and iPod in one device. As soon as Apple make something Nokia 6300 sized with 80 GB of flash storage (about 3-4 years away I reckon), it's mine.
With more and more of these simpler handsets also offering music-playing capabilities, Apple needs to come out with the Nokia 6300-esque "iPhone Mini" pretty soon in order to avoid cannibalisation of the iPod Nano and Shuffle.
Yes I do want them to sell such a phone.
For starters though, the only real thing that would be pretty impossible to use on a smaller screen would be the 'qwerty' keyboard, that's why this device could go with a soft T9 equivalent.
Secondly, the storage alone for this device will be halved in price by the time summer '08 rolls around. That's not even taking into account the battery wouldn't be as big, and as the screen is likely the most expensive part of this device, you can bet they'd be saving more than $20 on that. Then you have the raw materials, when you are making millions of something every gram of materials you save adds up, again saving more than you might think.
I'm wouldn't be at all surprised by the time this device is ready for the market--if they go in the direction I think they will for iPhone nano--I'd say they could sell the 4GB version for $349, and the 8GB version for $449.
IMO Apple will never sell a phone with a T9 equivalent. The multi-touch keyboard is part of what makes the iPhone the iPhone, Jobs has been extremely explicit about his disdain for those "tiny little keyboards" that make cell phones so hard to use.
Of course I don't disagree that component costs will be lower by the summer of '08, that's a given. I have no idea what the savings on a slightly smaller screen would be, but it sure as shit isn't going to be $150.
So by the summer of '08, yeah, no doubt Apple will be selling a cheaper iPhone, with specs much like the one they're selling now and better models selling for the current price.
But I don't think it will be any smaller, or throw out software just to pretend to be a "Mini".
But you're still acting like "the internet" and messaging and maps and all are some kind of bolt-on that adds complexity, so that Apple could just jettison those and make "just a phone", which still ignores the basic paradigm that the iPhone represents-- a platform for multi-touch.
Apple didn't really set out to make a phone, which is why expecting them to follow up with "just a phone" doesn't make any sense.
Apple made a handheld computing platform, on which "phone" is a killer app, as is the internet and iPod.
Apple will be forced to make new models because of what Wall Street expects, but I'd be very surprised if they come out with a phone without multi-touch, etc. I don't think the iPhone will be marketed the same way the iPods have been and include several smaller models. I honestly don't know what Apple plans on doing, but I see the situation more like the iMac vs. xMac where Apple wants to include the whole "computer" and not take anything away from the experience i.e. it must have multi-touch and be fun to use and just work. The user interface is the iPhone! and is what makes it special. Without multi-touch the iPhone is nothing and Apple is not about to go backward with their phones. Perhaps I'm wrong but I think Apple is in a bit of a box.
Thank-you. I'm glad somebody gets it.
It's true, it's something of a dilemma-- Apple does need to protect iPod market share with a (more) mass market music phone, but I can't see any good way to get "elegant" into much less than the current iPhone.
If they're really aggressive about bumping up memory and features, so they can drop the price of the previous iteration, they run the risk of creating a market where everyone is waiting for the next "better" model which will be along shortly.
Who knows? Maybe they figured out a way to make a click wheel work for "just a phone" and they'll come at it from the other direction-- an iPod that happens to have a phone in it, rather than the other way around.
You honestly think that Apple won't release a mobile phone that is the same physical size (or similar) to the 6300? You think Apple are going to ignore the other 90% of the mobile phone market that isn't smart-phones? You think Apple are going to sit back and watch Motorola, Nokia and Sony Ericsson eat into iPod market share and not do anything about it? We will see a much smaller iPhone, probably without multi-touch, within 18 months from now.
Problem is that without multi-touch where's the appeal? And how could they charge a premium? An iPhone without multi-touch and stripped of many of the current ipone features starts to rum into the same problems the x Mac runs into when trying to justify it's existence in the Apple product line up. Apple probably won't make devices that cater to the low end market because they can't compete there on price.