Apple's Low-Cost iPhone Design Said to Be Mix of iPhone 5 and iPod Touch with iPod Classic Curves

[Haswell]

What does it matter how much the phone costs? It's the monthly fees that's the real problem. Why not just offer a data only plan for $30 a month and just make VoIP calls.

[vmistery]

Originally Posted by Haswell

What does it matter how much the phone costs? It's the monthly fees that's the real problem. Why not just offer a data only plan for $30 a month and just make VoIP calls.

Because this is for pay as you go users not on a contract. Very common here in the UK and elsewhere in the world.

[jshulman10]

Originally Posted by samcraig

Aesthetically. Parts wise - not that much different than other phones. Apple just had a larger profit margin.

I said premium. Premium does mean more powerful. Premium, is the product's quality as a whole.

[mcfrazieriv]

Why are analysts employed anymore? Are they on the bloated government payroll?

[InuNacho]

Originally Posted by Haswell

What does it matter how much the phone costs? It's the monthly fees that's the real problem. Why not just offer a data only plan for $30 a month and just make VoIP calls.

No emergency calls, at least here in the U.S.

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Originally Posted by Haswell

What does it matter how much the phone costs? It's the monthly fees that's the real problem. Why not just offer a data only plan for $30 a month and just make VoIP calls.

Because the players like things "as is"- there's so much money in contracts and $100/month for AT&T, Verizon, etc. which in turn yields the surplus for them to pay Apple the fat subsidy so that we can seem to get a "free*" or cheap* iPhone when we sign up.

You're pitching a concept that would be much better for us consumers... but at AT&T, Verizon, etc's expense and thus Apple's expense too. The system is not about making things better for us if it costs the big companies money. But- as a fellow consumer- I do love the idea.

FYI: I went with a 4G Mini + earbuds with mic + talkatone & Skype to get there. So far, I've found free wifi so readily, I haven't needed to even pay the $30/month yet... and I don't feel like I'm really missing anything. For example, getting "what R U doin?" texts in real-time is not worth $100/month to me.

[sebastian...]

Originally Posted by hovscorpion12

The only thing that disapoints me is still using a 4" screen. 4.5, 5" is perfect.

I think the original 4S screen size is perfect. I'm waiting for Apple to create a premium and fast small iphone to replace my iphone 4s.
You can use your ipad mini if you want a bigger screen.

[coltman75]

Originally Posted by Renzatic

They did have a plastic Macbook. It was called the Macbook.

But it wasn't $600, it was $999. Before the iPad, everyone here was calling for Apple to make a $600 netbook because they thought that the netbooks were the future, and that no one would ever spend $1K on a notbook anymore.

[Toadstall]

Ahh whatever, I thought I was making a stand when I didnt get i5 on launch day, and Ive finally caved in and got 64gb of lovliness.
Got white though - so now getting "birds phone" from colleagues (Sadsungs and HTC / BB owners)

So Im along for the ride - Ill probably buy it anyway.

ps. Who ever said "your'e not going anywhere" when I was bleeting about not wanting a larger phone - mmm appears you were right.

[RenoG]

The question is, will this be released in North America (?)

[Insulin Junkie]

Originally Posted by Waxhead138

Welcome to the Iphone-Meh

Or quite possibly the iPhone Meth... first Apple phone to be afforded by people who usually blow all their money on drugs, or something.

@leak: Plausible, don't care though. Right now iOS 7 is where my remaining interest in the company lies. Me personally, if they blow it, or add anymore features already provided by other companies in another vein effort to replace perfectly good stuff that's out there with their own inferior services, I'm going Droid, hell knows it's viable enough now, and certainly will be in 2 damned years from now when my iPhone 5 contract expires...
The only reason I didn't mind being locked into apple's ecosystem all these years is because everything they provided was actually better, smoother, ahead. This is no longer true, so why limit myself. I sure as hell know I'd rather drag and drop songs onto my device than faff around with iTunes, I know I wanna add the functionality I desire to my phone, have the ability to delete stock apps and I sure as hell miss the ability to set ringtones with a simple click, instead of cumbersome crap like Ringtonium and similar apps. I wanna be able to automatically add the radio recordings and songs I download off youtube with Brownees to the music app, and set the amount of time before the screen starts dimming, so I can actually use Flipboard without tapping the damn screen ever so often to brighten up the screen...

[Heavens Hammer]

I guess now that Steve's gone they can move on to better
*cough*...

I mean inferior things.