Apple Working on Cheaper, Smaller iPhone and MobileMe Overhaul

[Slurpy2k8]

I don't think MobileMe will be free. Apple is not a philanthropic organisation. I see Mobile Me receiving more free parts. Perhaps something social to jump on that bandwagon.

I use my Mobile Me purely for document storage. Mostly because it's cheaper than Dropbox and integrated better with iOS and OSX. (Switched from dropbox recently). I'd be pretty annoyed that I just paid 150 bucks on my family plan just to see every guy and his dog get it for free. There better be some refunds on my unused time there or customer support is going to get a tough one.

Maybe they'll just make a tiered pricing system with perhaps 1/2 GB free and over that you pay a fee. Would make sense.

Id be willing to wager anyone here that MM me will become a free service this year, or at least the vast majority of its features. This has nothing to do with philanthropy. It has everything to do with increasing the inherent value and attractiveness of its products, by giving more functionality to more users. I'm betting the percentage of people who use MM is very small, and its to Apple's benefit to greatly increase this number. They would be more than able to absorb the bandwidth costs, and the advantage of being able to advertise this service, which would benefit anyone with a mac/ios device, will greatly offset this, as well as increasing the synergy between these devices.

Also, can't stand those people that bitch about something becoming cheaper/free, then expect/demand a refund for everything they've payed. You decided to pay for it because you decided the the service was worth the money. They have to right to decrease the cost at any time, you didnt sign up with a damn guarantee from them that it would stay the same price forever so you could feel good about yourself. Its a sign of immaturity and jealousy, since them decreasing the cost has absolutely no negative effect on you, only positive effects on others.

 

[ol4ERTH]

I think the only reason MobileMe is currently a paid service is that if Apple made it free for every iOS and Mac user they simply wouldn't be able to cope with the server and storage demands (I use MobileMe and over the past years it seems like they've been struggling a little as is.) I guess the new data centre is going to fix that...

 

[aross99]

I think focusing on the price of the phone is the wrong way to go. If you want to dramatically increase your market share, you need to find a way to get those people with feature/texting phones into the iPhone market. That isn't going to happen until you can get a phone w/o data or with pay as you go data.

These people pay $200-$300 for an iPod Touch, so they would pay for an iPhone. What they WONT do., is pay $15-$25/month for data when they can probably get all the data they need from WiFi.

People's budget are pushed to the max these days. I pay $180/mo for an iPhone and two texting phones. I would have replaced the texting phones with iPhones years ago, but not for an additional $30-$50/month.

I'm sure Apple knows this, but we need to find a way for AT&T and Verizon to allow pay as you go data, or at least a family data plan...

 

[sniffies]

Kinda confusing to have two separate topics in one thread.

Some people's short replies like "Hard to believe" don't even make sense.

 

[achtung!]

i really really want an "iphone nano". it will be the perfect fit for me. i dont want to pay over 600€ to carry a brick in my pocket.

 

[rjbruce]

I would definitely consider a $200 contract free iPhone if the carriers would let me have a plan that didn't have the built in subsidy. Yes, I am aware that will likely never happen, but a boy can dream can't he?

Just wonder what the battery life would be for something like that. 1/2 the phone = 1/2 the batteries = 1/2 the battery life?

 

[iMikeT]

No surprise that Apple is working on various prototypes and ideas over the years.

But this is the new dead horse that's going to be beaten for a little while. Nothing more than rumor and speculation at this point. I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[kcmac]

Not saying apple would do this but there seems to be a market for just a good solid little phone. Just makes calls. Possibly could have some of your music and maybe a calendar. But that would be it.

 

[xIGmanIx]

not sure why apple hasn't come out with a larger iphone (screen 4") since the market has showed they will sell and sell well. some of the larger phones 4.3" when placed next to iphones are marginally bigger and the screen size is welcomed. I personally would love to see what apples take is on a different form factor but it might be too little too late since android has passed ios market share in the US. for those other handsets to penetrate they would already have to be in production/planning.

 

[WiiDSmoker]

The iPhone needs to go larger (4") not smaller...

 

[HahaHaha321]

I hope they'll make a slightly larger one, too. So then they will have a Small, Medium and Large.

 

[liavman]

One thing to keep in mind is, this may not be really intended for the U.S. market where carrier subsidy creates an illusion of affordability. iPhone does not do well in India because the culture of 2 year contracts etc. do not exist that much. And iPhone without contract is way too expensive for most people. They are very price conscious. Such countries with a huge upwardly mobile population, can use this kind of a smart phone at 1/3 of the current price.. I think Apple can easily sell another 30 million of this per year globally. This is a nice inflection point before Android and Nokia phones target that market. They already have a leg up but that can easily be unseated by Apple.

But Apple is already having trouble meeting demand. That was the surprising thing about this news story. May be Apple is confident of solving the current production issues and take on this additional production demand.

 

[cacophony555]

The thing is, it seems Apple usually makes their older iphone cheaper, based on what they did with the iPhone 3Gs. So, if they continue that trend, the iPhone 4 should become $99. If that is the case, why would they make a smaller iPhone?

You're confusing contract price from no-contract price. The $99 iPhone required a $1500 contract over two years. The speculation about the new smaller iphone is that it could be offered contract free for $200.

You could use the contract free phone with a ~$10/month prepaid type plan which would cost you $240 (two years service) + $200 (phone) = $440 over two years. Compare that to the $1600 it would cost you to use a 3GS over two years.

 

[mirko.meschini]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; it-it) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148a Safari/6533.18.5)

not sure why apple hasn't come out with a larger iphone (screen 4") since the market has showed they will sell and sell well. some of the larger phones 4.3" when placed next to iphones are marginally bigger and the screen size is welcomed. I personally would love to see what apples take is on a different form factor but it might be too little too late since android has passed ios market share in the US. for those other handsets to penetrate they would already have to be in production/planning.

I agree, the 3,5" display is too small for all the jobs u can make with an actual iphone, i'd like at least a 4" with the same resolution of the iphone 4. 3,5" were enough 2 years ago but not now.
Now i have a 3gs and i'm waiting for iphone5 only for this reason.

 

[baryon]

iPhone nano sounds interesting but I'm afraid stuff is going to get really cramped on it. I mean the iPhone is quite big and bulky for a phone, but if Apple found a way to chop down the top and bottom parts and only keep the screen part, it would be small enough to not be bulky, without compromise.

The only way I can imagine an iPhone nano is with a retina display, and a keyboard that only works in Landscape mode. That might actually work!

 

[pancakedrawer]

Back to Maths class

Now that the iPhone 4 is out with it's 2X resolution screen, this seems doable!

Just halve the device dimensions and use the iPhone 3G screen resolution at the same dpi as the iPhone4 retina display, resulting in a phone like:

Height: 2.25 inches (57.6 mm)
Width: 1.155 inches (29.3 mm)
Depth: 0.37 inch (9.3 mm)
Weight: 2.4 ounces (68.5 grams)
Resolution: 480x320 (326 dpi)​

In Landscape the keyboard would be about the same size as the current iPhone in portrait. In Portrait mode we could get a class numeric keypad (1, 2ABC, 3DEF, etc).

Backwards compatibility continues to work as well by using the standard app assets (1X size).

Edit: Of course, in reality I think a 3/4 size phone would be much better, i mean... a 1" wide phone!

Halving the dimensions gives a phone (on the front/back) one quarter the area of the original. You only need to reduce them by 3/4 to reduce the 'size' by half.

I think the dimensions that the phone could be approximately 85mm high and 44mm wide with perhaps a slightly reduced depth but this is probably not what apple would focus on for a first revision.

People should check out the iFixit teardown of the iPhone. Most of its insides is battery so Apple would have no problem in creating a phone this size with decent battery life because as the battery wouldn't need to be as big if the screen was smaller with less pixels.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_6 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E200 Safari/6533.18.5)

Make up in multiple colors and they'll sell even more

Not sure if you are serious but I think this is a very real possibility.

 

[Braindead360]

I have and will continue to think that this rumor is totally dumb.

 

[MacAddict1978]

I don't know why Apple is so anti physical keyboard. It's a must have for a lot of people and would open their devices up to a whole new customer base. I know lots of people who say the KB is the only real deal breaker for them to get an iPhone. I can live without it, but if it were an option, I wan't a slider.

Apps would probably be a bit of the trade for the lower price. Yet there's lots of people out there who aren't going to play games on it and might just want to check an email, calendar, weather, etc. Think mom not tech savvy. And with tablets on the rise, what would you rather use? Women are a great demographic for smaller phone. The one device fits all obviously doesnt work or every company would do it. Apple has a huge unrealized opportunity to increase market share and adoption rate by throwing a few models out there. Look at how many form factors there are with Android on them?

Why won't an iPhone nano happen? Keyboard.

If it had a sliding physical kb, then game on.

Interesting. But I don't see how an iPhone Nano would be possible from the application compatibility perspective. If they make the screen smaller, everything on the screen would be too small to tap.

 

[najos]

iTunes in the cloud

Apple will most likely add iTunes service to the mobile me. In this way iOS users need not have an additional computer for activation, backups, and sync. This is because Steve plans to go all in on the iPad and he believe the iPad rapidly will replace a large part of the PC sales.

One could also speculate in Apple becoming an MVNO and selling wireless services together with phones. This fits well with the rumor of Apple introducing Soft-SIM, a built in programable SIM. If the next iPhone handles both WCDMA and CDMA in the same device Apple could buy wireless capacity independent on radio standards and set up the phone correctly as a part of activation without SIM for WCDMA.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

A $200 iPhone would fly off the shelves, maybe with just a voice plan and no expensive data. I would immediately order one or two.

 

[InsanelyApple]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_6 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E200 Safari/6533.18.5)

I have and will continue to think that this rumor is totally dumb.

Until it comes out, of course.

 

[InsanelyApple]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_6 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E200 Safari/6533.18.5)

A $200 iPhone would fly off the shelves, maybe with just a voice plan and no expensive data. I would immediately order one or two.

I can't tell if you are being serious or not.

 

[kinesin]

Not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but with the cheap android phones available people can buy into the android app store earlier and cheaper than the iPhone app store. When it comes to upgrade time these users are more likely to want to keep those investments and upgrade to more powerfully android phones. This could be a case of trying to stop/get vendor lock in Apple's favor at a lower price point.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_6 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E200 Safari/6533.18.5)



I can't tell if you are being serious or not.

I was kidding. What would I do with two phones. Makes no sense of course. I would only get one.

 

[MacAddict1978]

I couldn't agree more. Since it started off as .Mac, it's been crippled with sluggish performance and a lack luster feature set. For being a pay service, the storage and data transfer limits are obscene. There are free services that look better, perform better, no caps, better featured. The only real advantage to Mobile Me is that its a bit of a one stop shop, but that's about it.

Anyone who has serious needs of a calendar isn't using iCal, and a free service like Gmail kicks their butts. I also have never heard of Google losing all your stuff and having their features drop dead as MobileMe has done. While syncing is nice, Gmail syncs anyway and if you use the google address book same thing, for free. The way Mobile Me currently stands its a service that should be free. If you want to charge $100 a year, give unlimited everything. I also hope Lion brings a new and improved iCal. I've tried to use it over the years but it's just too basic unless everyone you know uses it, which they don't. Alarms are unreliable, to do lists, better views, better printing, etc. Throw iAds in the margins of the page if you want, but stop charging for features that aren't even premium features, they are mostly sub-par to free options. I don't think you need to be outside the US to have slow upload/download speeds. Unless they've fixed this. But always seems to be the biggest complaint. I did a trail to see how it had shaped up after the refinements, and iDisk was about as fast as the pony express... when they rode real ponies.

MobileMe needs more than just an overhaul. It needs starting from scratch. Even if it was 100% free, the only thing most people would use is find my iphone/pad. Everyones already got an email account, and most people (I'm talking about the majority, and not those that live in the Apple Advert fantasy world) will never use photo galleries or calendars on a regular basis.

As it currently stands, MobileMe is mediocre junk with a fancy UI. To top it off, its crap if you're outside the US. Upload/Download speeds are appallingly slow. until they get geocentric locations they will continue to fail on this front.