Citadel Securities analyst Shing Yin via a phone interview with Wired:
The main thing for Apple is increased distribution, which is more important now than when the iPhone was first released.
When the first iPhone was released on June 29, 2007, Apple was the underdog and AT&T was willing to take the risk. Not today.
Will the next iPhone be available on Sprint? I don’t see why not. This is mere conjecture, but by using a Qualcomm chipset that supports both GSM and CDMA networks, the next iPhone should be network agnostic.
This concept is by Guilherme Martins Schasiepen (Flickr photostream) and reported by MacMagazine. It’s a sexy-looking concept with plausible upgrades such as the FaceTime HD camera, 8-megapixel camera capable of 1080p video capture, a thinner body, etc. What I’m not sure about is the 4-inch display that pushes right up against the edges.
Grab your iPhone 4. Look closely at how your fingers hang over the display. On an edge-to-edge display that could constitute a touch, a bad user experience design.
And edge-to-edge display looks beautiful and it works on a device like the Gateway ID47. The tiny bezel allowed Gateway to integrate a 14-inch LCD into a 13.3-inch chassis. That’s great. But for a touch device like the iPhone it doesn’t work that well. And edge-to-edge display on an iPhone would lead to many false-positive touch actuation: you’re just holding the iPhone and it thinks you touched something when you actually didn’t. A lot of folks would get frustrated. I don’t think Apple would go this direction.
For a larger 4-inch display to work the iPhone will need to get a little bigger: not taller per se, but wider. Not much bigger since the display itself will have thinner bezels, the top and bottom could be trimmed a little, but the iPhone chassis will probably need to be slightly wider than the current iPhone 4. That could possibly happen.
I’ve argued that the post-PC era will be a multi-platform era. Although it may seem that the situation in the US is rapidly moving toward a duopoly, it may not end up that way. Note how much non-consumption still exists.
Purple is Other and Red is webOS. For the month of May, based on comScore:
What I’d like to know is: How will this chart look in March 2012 or 2013? Will US smartphone share continue to increase at current rates? Will Android, in particular?
Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi via Reuters:
In mature markets, the LG brand is still considered a step down from Samsung, which makes their products less appealing. HTC now means more to many consumers than LG. LG has been struggling to deliver more than just hardware and with the weaker brand, they are left many times to compete on price.
Too bad LG can’t make use of its sister company’s 3.5-inch IPS-based Retina Display that’s in the iPhone 4.
LG is expected to report a fifth consecutive quarterly loss this month, partly because of its poor phone business. LG has slashed its 2011 sales forecast from 30 million smartphones to 24 million, and overall handset shipments from 150 million to 114. In the first half of this year LG sold just over 10 million smartphones. Compare that to Samsung, estimated to have sold 19 million smartphones in Q2 alone.
Apple has upped the smartphone game. To compete a company has to provide great industrial design, tight integration with the operating system, a healthy app ecosystem, a huge multimedia storefront, all coupled to a seamless cloud service for sharing and syncing.
Research firm Localytics via SiliconValley.com:
Despite AT&T’s nearly eight-month head start, Verizon has managed to capture nearly a third of the U.S. iPhone 4 market.
As of July 1. It wouldn’t surprise me if Verizon eventually captured roughly 50% of all iPhone sales in the near future. In key iPhone markets like San Francisco and Manhattan, Verizon’s network is rock solid while AT&T service is generally poor.
When Apple introduces an iPhone that makes use of LTE, Verizon will again be a clear winner. The only disadvantage Verizon compared to AT&T is its erratic billing system that often messes up your monthly bill.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed for an iPhone that works on Sprint. Why? Sprint’s service is considered quite reliable and licenses Verizon’s network when not available. And Sprint offers unlimited data services, for now.
Senior Analyst at IHS iSuppli Wayne Lam via DigiTimes:
It remains to be seen whether the next Apple iPhone set for introduction in September will support 4G LTE. However, if it does, two things are clear. First, the iPhone’s minuscule printed circuit board (PCB) will have to grow in size in order to support the first-generation LTE baseband processor as well as all the supporting chipset. Second, the next iPhone’s BOM value certainly will increase substantially compared to the iPhone 4 if LTE is implemented in the same manner as in the HTC Thunderbolt.
Could Apple develop a larger iPhone? Perhaps one that incorporates a 4-inch display? To me, and based on this information, that would be the only way the iPhone slated for a September release would have LTE.
As for the BOM, an LTE-equipped iPhone would mean tens of millions of LTE chips, and that would also mean much lower prices than what HTC paid. Future iPhones with a two-year agreement will likely continue to start at US$199, or perhaps lower.
As I have shared previously, I think the next iPhone will look just like the current iPhone 4, but with an A5 chip and a better camera.
Jonathan Geller at BGR:
We reported that the handset would nix physical menu keys going forward, and would feature a monster 720p -resolution display, and we have now confirmed with our source that the screen itself is branded as a “Super AMOLED HD” display.
Google’s Nexus Prime with a Super AMOLED HD display sporting 1280×720 pixels. That should give the iPhone 4 Retina Display some serious competition.
Andrew at Retrovo Blog:
Maybe the “4” in the iPhone 4 name gives iPhone owners (34%) the false impression that they already own a 4G phone but the fact is Apple doesn’t offer a 4G phone at the moment.
Some call an iPhone 4 an iPhone 4G. 24% of BlackBerry owners were also confused. Thanks to AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, and others the term 4G means jack. The only thing it means, most of the time: 4G is faster than 3G.
Maybe Apple should go back to calling iPhone simply iPhone, without the suffix nonsense.
And if you read between the lines in Cook’s comments on the prepaid market, he seems to be hinting strongly that Apple is going to soon pursue the unlocked market with a lower-priced no-contract iPhone. Maybe the iPod Touch goes away, replaced by a $249 or $299 no-contract iPhone?
I don’t see a contract-free iPhone replacing the iPod touch. In the Q&A after Apple’s earnings announcement Cook explains that contract-free iPhones are popular in geographies where credit systems aren’t as robust as they are in the U.S., Western Europe, Japan, Australia, etc. I think Apple might come out with a cheaper contract-free iPhone and target developing countries, specifically China and Brazil, two companies Cook mentioned as being largely untapped with potential for significant growth for iPhone sales.
Christian Zibreg at 9to5 Google:
The fall of iOS came as a result of the overall UK market growing at a faster pace than iPhone sales, which have been overshadowed for the past two months as Samsung’s Galaxy S II smartphone emerged as the best-selling smartphone.
The iPhone is the priciest smartphone in the UK with 45% of contracts offering it for free compared to 90% of contracts for Android smartphones.
Partly because of the price and partly because of stiff competition, according to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, the share of iPhone sales in the UK for the 12 weeks ending June 12, 2011 was 18.3% compared to Android smartphones’ 45.2%.
The main competition is the Samsung Galaxy S II. With its 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display sporting a RGB stripe 800×480 pixel format. The iPhone beater, at least in the UK, sold three million in 55 days worldwide.
As if the Samsung Galaxy S II isn’t good enough, Google will soon up the ante with a Super AMOLED HD-equipped Nexus Prime. Rumor has it the Super AMOLED HD display will sport a 1280×720 pixel format. Bonkers.
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