in a year or two you will be a fool if you pay any money for a smartphone with a 2 year contract
iPhone is already free with contract in many places outside of the US.
in a year or two you will be a fool if you pay any money for a smartphone with a 2 year contract
The iphone 3GS is already at $49 a pop. How cheaper can you go?
Why, because it's got more ethanol in it? Or maybe it's made from a genetically engineered T-Rex?
Bad analogy clibby.
This is exactly it. The "low-price" smartphone *means* free on contract or sub-$200 no-contract.
Now, consider. The average selling price of an iPhone is more than $600, and its bill of materials is about $200. Apples' margin on each iPhone is $400 or more.
That means given their current margins, Apple couldn't match these low-price smartphones, not even if they could manufacture them out of thin air.
So forget about smaller screens, less storage, or whatever. The *only way* Apple goes to this market is by deliberately slashing their margins to gain market share.
The amazing, mind-blowing thing is that AAPL's CEO-in-waiting just told a bunch of analysts on the record that this is what they're looking to do.
No one can doubt the mobile device market is ********n exploding right now and represents a much bigger financial opportunity for Apple. Most people probably would agree that the majority of cell phone buyers can't afford an iPhone be it unsubsidized or even on an expensive monthly contract. So this strategy could work for Apple. They could have 3 tiers of pricing;
1. iPhone 5 - 16GB / 32GB ($199 / $299) on contract
2. iPhone 4 - 8GB ($99) on contract
3. "enhanced" 3GS using an A4 processor, 512MB RAM, 8GB storage, and everything else staying the same - $199 with no contract
Does that mean we will maybe see a cheaper white macbook soon? Let's hope for thatand that Apple did not want its products to be "just for the rich," and that the company is "not ceding any market.
If I'm not mistaken Apple have never been active in 'budget' desktops or laptops, so right there you have two markets that they have ceded.
quality = expensive = apple
less quality = less expensive = everyone else
I won't claim to be the only one who has thought of this, but it seems like I'm the only one on this comment thread.
iPhone nano will be the size of the iPod nano and will run on the same operating system - ie no apps. Also no camera, so pictures will be kept to a minimum. Relatively small flash storage is only needed for music. The reason they are working on better voice recognition is so that people can dictate short emails/sms with a fair degree of accuracy. It can be worn as a wristwatch or in a pocket. Blue tooth headphones (+mic) will come standard. This would herald in the era of truly wearable electronics...
Windows pundit Paul Thurrott was recently surmising that if Apple and Microsoft were to enter into a partnership to create a brand new cellular and data network in the US, the cost of ownership for a smartphone would be dramatically reduced, since neither company would have to deal with the massive infrastructure that AT&T, Verizon, etc. have to maintain. They'd be starting fresh, and the arrangement wouldn't alter their competitive relationship.
I just wonder if tomorrow is pretty much all iPad (with a little OS preview), or if there will be any other "surprises".
I don't understand. They would need to build out their own infrastructure and this would result in lower costs?