But can the retailers?
Stocking hundreds of $100 iPods is far different than stocking hundreds of $500 iPhones.
They already stock hundreds of iPhones. If nothing is done to consolidate SKUs, at worst they'll have what? 33% more of them? After the launch frenzy dies down, it's really just two more shelves of phones. Not an unmanageable quantity.
And as I said
before, who knows what types of radios these will have?
The technology already exists to accommodate every single cellular frequency with one chip. The timing is
perfect for a debut, no?
If the RF360 chip is the solution, the only obstacle is the prepackaged SIM cards. Today in any best buy or apple store, you can buy a T-Mobile, an AT&T, and an unlocked iPhone 5 and end up with three of the exact same phone. The only difference is the carrier it's locked to by software and the SIM card it has preinstalled (or not if it's unlocked). The same is true for the Verizon and Sprint models.
In the case of the Sprint and Verizon iPhone 4 (which doesn't have a SIM), the same SKU is used for both carriers. It's locked during the sale or account upgrade.
The International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) is the number on the SIM that identifies the country,
carrier and individual subscriber. Because of this, to truly unify the SKUs and have only one per color/size, SIMs would need to be provided outside the packaging and inserted into the device post-sale.
Not inconceivable, however. Apple Stores carry SIM cards for all of their carriers already. When I worked for Verizon, occasionally we'd get entire batches of iPhones that have IMSI numbers that hadn't been recognized by the system. The solution was an external SIM card that we inserted after the sale. Those phones usually became normal and sellable within a few hours. I imagine there was a delay in the input or a database hadn't refreshed.
What I learned: There seems like an opportunity to create a universal SIM card standard that has IMSIs assigned to carriers during the sale rather than upon manufacturing. Or a new type of card all together that combats fragmentation caused in reality by carriers unwillingness to share the spectrum and provide a better quality experience for everyone.
