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If the voice navigation works really well then that might also compensate for a smaller device. More of a phone and less of a pocket computer.
 
It's a screamer of a streamer

Let's not talk about phones for a minute. Let's talk about Television. Rumors fly every so often that Apple is doing a TV set, a real big screen TV. OK, take an AppleTV and put a 50" screen on it. No tuner though, just a couple of HDMI inputs, and Ethernet and WiFi. Kind of cool!

But instead of 50", think about 4". Basically an AppleTV with a 4" screen attached. Take out HDMI and Ethernet, keep WiFi, maybe add 3G, maybe add a phone since you have the 3G in there. Have iPod connector with video out. But it's not a replacement for an iPhone or an AppleTV. It is a replacement for the iPod Touch, as cheap as the iPod touch in its non-3g version.

So what do I have in my pocket? Like AppleTV, it has relatively few gigs of memory. It plays stuff from the cloud. It's a screamer of a streamer. Play rented movies and TV, play Netflix, play your stuff on iTunes at home. Play selected apps - the ones the AppleTV will open up to soon.

As for voice control, YES. Put Siri in there, in the same way it's getting into the iPhone and perhaps the Mac - ask this thing any question, get an answer back, give it orders like "book me a cab" and it does it. For my thoughts on upcoming voice control, check my blog at myallo.com.
 
To those who want a larger screen.

I had a go of an HTC Desire HD on Friday after a work colleague got one.

And, sorry, it's too big. Even the guy who owned it said, "Taking it in/out your pocket is like wielding a brick at times".

It almost reminded me of the days I walked around with the original N-Gage at my ear while Nokia's were getting smaller and smaller.

The Desire HD looks more like a mini-tablet than a large phone.
 
Voice navigation Shuffle-style: press and hold the button 3 times in a row, and the voice will read out the possible things you can do. Press it again to do the thing it says.

I don't know about you guys, but while voice navigation sounds cool, I would never really use it. I feel stupid saying commands to a phone, and especially when I have to repeat them 5 times for it to get it right. Then of course by that time you could just have done it with your hands.

But the rest sounds good, if this is really true, they are probably making the device much smaller, but only making the screen slightly smaller. And since the screen already touches the edges as much as possible on the sides, they are probably going to cut off the top and bottom (speaker and home button part) of the phone. That's something I think they should do with the normal-sized iPhone as well, if they can. Well, I'm sure they will do it as soon as it is technically possible!

Hate to break this to you. While I love Apple products, voice command is one area Android has Apple beat by a mile.

I can tell my phone to call xxx resturant and it will find it and call it. Tell it to Navigate to location/store or address and it does it. I say 90% accuracy. You need to try it to believe it. In fact, I dictate many of my text messages now as well. I can't understand why Apple hasn't master voice command yet?
 
I would think this was make it really hard to hold onto without accidentally pressing something on the screen. I have a hard enough time holding onto my current iPhone without touching the screen in the wrong place, and because of this it slips out of my hands sometimes!


definitely happens to me too!

one time i was lying in bed using my iphone and i dropped it on my head, it hurt! :p
 
That's a lot of rumors over the weekend!

MWC (Mobile World Congress) is going on right now, many press releases and announcements coming out of that.

Apple is making sure they're not forgotten in the flurry of words being flung around...
 
Do they really want to go the way of the failure that is the latest iPod Nano?

The latest iPod Nano was a fail for so many reasons, the biggest being the exact same price as the last one but with the same memory and LESS function. Ridiculously stupid.

An iPhonano would be excellent if it cut some utility, was half size, and was half price. I'd be interested in that if it was still a good mp3+info holding device sans video. I'm not a texter, though, unlike most people.
 
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WeegieMac said:
To those who want a larger screen.

I had a go of an HTC Desire HD on Friday after a work colleague got one.

And, sorry, it's too big. Even the guy who owned it said, "Taking it in/out your pocket is like wielding a brick at times".

It almost reminded me of the days I walked around with the original N-Gage at my ear while Nokia's were getting smaller and smaller.

The Desire HD looks more like a mini-tablet than a large phone.

Exactly.

Apple knows it's users, of which many are women and anemic males who do not want such an ugly bulge on their starvation achieved bodies.

Also, such a large phone would not easily fit in the hands of females, which are key to the iPhones success.
 
Even then, it's not the resolution that's the point. The interface and apps are designed for a 3.5" display. Any smaller and they wouldn't work properly. Buttons would be too small to press etc., meaning that the current apps in the App Store wouldn't be compatible.

If this phone really does get released, I'm guessing it'll run iOS in a similar way to how the iPod nano currently does (its own few apps and no access to the App Store).

Well not really 3.5" with 44x44pixel controls isn't ideal for everyone but was designed to capture the largest group of people possible. It also may have been a compromise between detection grid resolution(including light transmission lose from the screen), response time, control density and well price at the time. If Moore's Law applies then for the same cost they should be able to detect a target 1/4 the size with today's tech.

If you consider that the majority of the population are women and children. So even before you take in to account cultural influences a significant part of the market would find a slightly smaller screen more comfortable and still highly usable.

Those of us with bigger hands can be offered an improved experience with just the better detection tech.
 
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Exactly.

Apple knows it's users, of which many are women and anemic males who do not want such an ugly bulge on their starvation achieved bodies.

Also, such a large phone would not easily fit in the hands of females, which are key to the iPhones success.

Anemic males? :lol:

I kind of really like the current form factor of the iPod touch right now. It feels right in my hand. I have to see an iPhone nano in my hand, though, to really see if it's better or worse.
 
assuming the screen is only slightly smaller (25-30%) and exactly half the resolution of the current iPhone 4, there would be no reason Apple couldn't make it immediately capable of running half resolution versions of all current apps and then allow developers to slowly update their apps to be more compatible over time

that is exactly what they did with iPad only initially doubling resolution until individual app compatibility was implemented by developers

and you are out of your mind if you think Apple would release a phone (or any mobile computing device) that is not in the iTunes/app store ecosystem

Can you imagine the current on-screen buttons 25-30% smaller? Clearly you didn't read my post properly. Resolution isn't the issue, the physical size is. Making the current apps any smaller would make them near impossible to use.
 
To those who want a larger screen.

I had a go of an HTC Desire HD on Friday after a work colleague got one.

And, sorry, it's too big. Even the guy who owned it said, "Taking it in/out your pocket is like wielding a brick at times".

It almost reminded me of the days I walked around with the original N-Gage at my ear while Nokia's were getting smaller and smaller.

The Desire HD looks more like a mini-tablet than a large phone.

I agree. I thought the iPhone 3/3G was too big also. I had a Sony Ericsoon W880i for ages, and wouldn't give it up until recently as it was so handy.

The new HP Veer might have started something - it is quite thick, but otherwise a handy size.

If the iPhone Nano is 'half the size', that might mean by volume, and that would mean less significant reductions of screen area.
 
Can you imagine the current on-screen buttons 25-30% smaller? Clearly you didn't read my post properly. Resolution isn't the issue, the physical size is. Making the current apps any smaller would make them near impossible to use.
The cheaper phone doesn't have to include a retina display. The shrink could be anywhere between 0 and 30%. I'm sure that a $200 or $300 price point, enough people won't really care about the point you're making. There's a price/usability middle ground somewhere.

I think we all agree that Apple will not introduce fragmentation, even if it meant no apps for this new tiny phone.
 
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If this thing is an edge to edge screen, then clearly the screen size can remain 3.5". The device would just be about the size of the iPhone 4 with the bezels chopped off. No issues wit different display sizes. Home button can shift to the sides or go away altogether, the latter being more likely.
 
Exactly.

Apple knows it's users, of which many are women and anemic males who do not want such an ugly bulge on their starvation achieved bodies.

Also, such a large phone would not easily fit in the hands of females, which are key to the iPhones success.

Wow, you say some pretty stupid things but this comment sets new standards.

On a related note: Last night I was talking to a guy that said he hated his Droid because it was so big. Five minutes later he was telling me he bought it beceause the screen was bigger than the iPhone. Talk about confused.

Then again, I would love a 10" screen that came in a 3.5" phone. :confused:
 
Quick 'chop
 

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The latest iPod Nano was a fail for so many reasons, the biggest being the exact same price as the last one but with the same memory and LESS function. Ridiculously stupid.

An iPhonano would be excellent if it cut some utility, was half size, and was half price. I'd be interested in that if it was still a good mp3+info holding device sans video. I'm not a texter, though, unlike most people.

the new ipod nano was not a failure,
 
Well...

If it's so cheap to make iPhone 3GS then why not simply sell that as the low end model AKA Tier 3 ?

Or even when iPhone 5 arrives... iPhone 4 is Tier 2.

iPhone 5 is premium...

Each new iteration supersedes the previous and 3 generations still run the current iOS... with iOS then 3GS probably wont run it so end user can keep iOS 4...
My niece uses my iPod Touch 1 fine with her music and stuff and videos and arcade games.
 
my mock up

I think the the edge to edge screen design enables this new iPhone to shrink considerably without creating an unusable interface. The screen doesn't have to shrink much at all!

iPhone5nano.jpg


It might even sell better then the regular iPhone. I believe it will be free with a 2 year contract. This is the phone for the masses.

Hopefully they'll take the regular iPhone5's screen edge to edge while keeping the same form factor (or something similar.) This is actually something i've been wanting for some time!

iPhone5.jpg
 
I think that it will be something like a semi-smart phone. Can't do everything that the iPhone can.. just most of the stuff. It would allow for Apple to sell to people who don't want to pay for data (my parents for their own phones) but still have a top-of-the-line touchscreen phone.
 
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.Shine said:
So if i have this right, then in the next few months we'll be seeing..

iPad 2
MacBook Pro refresh
iPhone 5 (or iPhone 4GS or whatever it'll be called)
iPhone Nano (with edge to edge screen) (or whatever it'll be called)
iOS 5
Mac OS X 10.7
Free MobileMe
iTunes air sync

wow..this is amazing.

I really like the idea of a smaller phone, but i think "half-size" is cutting it too small, but we'll see. This is gonna be a huge blow to Android, as Apple will now be competing against the amount of iPhones in the market with the iPhone Nano, along with the specs of the Android devices as well with the iPhone 5.
Both possibly running a polished iOS 5.

And for all of us with Macs, we'll be seeing Lion be released, and maybe iOS 5 and Lion will have some sort of syncing ability or something. Their releases seem pretty close by.

Missed the MacBook Air refresh if you believe the rumors.. I hope its true..
 
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