Now that everyone's started kicking and screaming, I thought I'd offer my guess about Apple's business perspective.
--- When the mom'n'pop crowd "finally gets an iPhone!!!!" now that the 3GS is free, they'll be finally hooked into the Apple ecosystem that their kids, grandkids, nephews, and nieces have been raving about. And the 3GS will blow their sad little dumb phones away - or perhaps even their aging smartphones, if they have them. In a generation or two they'll be buying new iOS devices. Or at least they will be far more likely to than if they didn't experience the 3GS.
--- The "I've kind of wanted an iPhone for a while, maybe the older ones are cheaper now" crowd will be much more likely to get on board with the iPhone 4 at the $99 price point, a device which is pretty darn good even compared to other more "cutting edge" options. After all, I still get comments all the time along the lines of, "Oh wow, that's a 4?" as if to say, "You must be a geek/fanboy/techy/whatever" despite the fact that there are supposedly many more advanced phones out there. The average person (read: non-tech-blog-reader) views the iPhone 4 as FAR more than "run of the mill" when it comes to phones and will continue to do so for many months.
--- The hardcore fans, the "I've been waiting to upgrade crowd," and tons of other miscellaneous people will jump for the 4GS just like they did when the 3GS came out. It'll fly off the shelves despite the naysayers' fire and brimstone predictions. It will probably break all kinds of records because people's experience of a device is NOT a reflection of its specs - the iPhone 4S isn't 4G, but if it's faster than 4G phones then that's all that matters to the average consumer. And really it's all that SHOULD matter even to us in the techy crowd.
I guess time will tell, but to me it seems pretty likely that the iPhone 4S will dominate the market without a shiny new casing, without supposed "4G" or HSPA+, and without whatever tech specs (be it RAM, NFC, ...) this crowd thinks is "necessary."
--- When the mom'n'pop crowd "finally gets an iPhone!!!!" now that the 3GS is free, they'll be finally hooked into the Apple ecosystem that their kids, grandkids, nephews, and nieces have been raving about. And the 3GS will blow their sad little dumb phones away - or perhaps even their aging smartphones, if they have them. In a generation or two they'll be buying new iOS devices. Or at least they will be far more likely to than if they didn't experience the 3GS.
--- The "I've kind of wanted an iPhone for a while, maybe the older ones are cheaper now" crowd will be much more likely to get on board with the iPhone 4 at the $99 price point, a device which is pretty darn good even compared to other more "cutting edge" options. After all, I still get comments all the time along the lines of, "Oh wow, that's a 4?" as if to say, "You must be a geek/fanboy/techy/whatever" despite the fact that there are supposedly many more advanced phones out there. The average person (read: non-tech-blog-reader) views the iPhone 4 as FAR more than "run of the mill" when it comes to phones and will continue to do so for many months.
--- The hardcore fans, the "I've been waiting to upgrade crowd," and tons of other miscellaneous people will jump for the 4GS just like they did when the 3GS came out. It'll fly off the shelves despite the naysayers' fire and brimstone predictions. It will probably break all kinds of records because people's experience of a device is NOT a reflection of its specs - the iPhone 4S isn't 4G, but if it's faster than 4G phones then that's all that matters to the average consumer. And really it's all that SHOULD matter even to us in the techy crowd.
I guess time will tell, but to me it seems pretty likely that the iPhone 4S will dominate the market without a shiny new casing, without supposed "4G" or HSPA+, and without whatever tech specs (be it RAM, NFC, ...) this crowd thinks is "necessary."