Digitimes, citing the Chineese language Economic Daily News, is reporting that chip orders for the rumored iPhone Nano might come in March, with two Taiwanese corporations having already been chosen to handle those chip orders. According to the Economic Daily News, the iPhone Nano is expected to be released in June at the earliest.
On a related note, Electronista reported yesterday that an iPhone Nano was in the works for 2009, but that it would only be sold in China. The source for that story, however, was an analyst with no concrete evidence. Shocker.
In any event, rumors about an iPhone Nano keep floating around, but given all the reasons why a smaller form factor iPhone doesn’t make sense right now, this rumor has to be filed under “I’ll believe it when I see it.” As we’ve noted earlier, the whole point of the iPhone is its large display that allows users to comfortably browse the web, watch movies, and use applications. I’m not sure what appeal an iPhone lacking these features would have for users. And on that note, a smaller iPhone of that size wouln’t be able to accommodate any applications, which is fast becoming a major selling point of the device.
January 13th, 2009 at 10:17 am
If Apple released an iPhone Nano, it would be pointless to engineer it as just-as-capable but shrunken version of the existing iPhone. However, think about what Apple did with the iPod Shuffle/Mini/Nano. They saw a low-end market filled with garbage players that “people just throw in a drawer somewhere” – It wasn’t just an iPod with similar capabilities as their flagship, but smaller, was it?
A similar jump can be made with mobile phones. How many cheap garbage phones are out there, for $29, or free, or $9.99 with prepaid service? It’s the same market as people who bought all those low end mp3 players, the same consumer mindset – pay a little but only get a little. Apple turned this market on its head by saying “pay a little more but get a whole lot more” with iPod Shuffle/Nano/mini. So you could buy a $30 mp3 player and hate it or buy a $79/$99/$149 music player and love it (without having to pay $349 for a full iPod). Apple could go after that market easily with a $99 or $79 iPhone Nano.
Don’t take an iPhone Nano and say “it’s terrible compared to what the iPhone can do” because that’s not the point. iPod Shuffle is “awful” compared to iPod classic, now isn’t it?
Instead, think of the market – prepaid users, 16-year-old teenie girls who text 40 pages a minute to their friends in class and would say the Nano is “so cute, Daddy!,” people who are sick of terrible UI’s on terrible garbage phones, and people who want a simple but elegant experience without having to buy into the full iPhone ecosystem and pay a carrier like $2,000 over 2 years in service fees (“I don’t play many games, but it shouldn’t take 14 minutes to tap a new contact into my phone like it does with my existing Craptastic X79A-4 prepaid phone.)” These are people who are not intrigued by the depth and promise of a phone that some say could double as a netbook, aren’t impressed with an App store (yet), they want a simple phone that does a few things well…and maybe they will upgrade to an iPhone later when they see how cool of a leap it is from the Nano to the 3G.
iPhone Nano could storm that market, giving legions of people who hate their phones but can’t afford/don’t want a full iPhone and related expenses a serious upgrade option.
iPhone Nano would need to strip out lots of expensive options to make it affordable/profitable and deliver a simple experience. It would be a prepaid phone with a modest processor a la PA Semi. It would have bluetooth, and a camera, but that’s about it – no accelerometers, GPS or wifi. 4-8GB flash. Contacts, Mail, Calendar sync via Mobile Me. No App store, except a small set of games that run on the modest processor – Apple already has some “iPhone games” that run on the iPod Classic OS…something like that, easy for developers to throw together. Syncing over the air to Mobile Me – maybe Apple becomes an MVNO for this special prepaid service? Syncing of music, movies, games, etc. via bluetooth and/or usb cable.
The point is, I would pay $99 for a prepaid, stripped down iPhone Nano that costs $.10/minute on prepaid with an optional $10/month charge to sync to mobile me over the air if it means I could ditch my offensively inadequate and insanely clunky existing prepaid phone. There is no downside to a “crippled iPhone” because I would never commit to a real iPhone and Apple can deliver an experience that would engulf the traditional capabilities of prepaid phones. When you look at it from the viewpoint of a prepaid user, the idea shines.
Finally, how big is the “crappy” cellphone market? *EVERYONE* has a cell phone, but only 10% of us crave super-capable smartphones with all the bells and whistles. It’s simply a good numbers game for Apple to go after this market of undeserved cell phone users as they dwarf the number of people who need/want a smartphone.
January 13th, 2009 at 10:17 am
If Apple released an iPhone Nano, it would be pointless to engineer it as just-as-capable but shrunken version of the existing iPhone. However, think about what Apple did with the iPod Shuffle/Mini/Nano. They saw a low-end market filled with garbage players that “people just throw in a drawer somewhere” – It wasn’t just an iPod with similar capabilities as their flagship, but smaller, was it?
A similar jump can be made with mobile phones. How many cheap garbage phones are out there, for $29, or free, or $9.99 with prepaid service? It’s the same market as people who bought all those low end mp3 players, the same consumer mindset – pay a little but only get a little. Apple turned this market on its head by saying “pay a little more but get a whole lot more” with iPod Shuffle/Nano/mini. So you could buy a $30 mp3 player and hate it or buy a $79/$99/$149 music player and love it (without having to pay $349 for a full iPod). Apple could go after that market easily with a $99 or $79 iPhone Nano.
Don’t take an iPhone Nano and say “it’s terrible compared to what the iPhone can do” because that’s not the point. iPod Shuffle is “awful” compared to iPod classic, now isn’t it?
Instead, think of the market – prepaid users, 16-year-old teenie girls who text 40 pages a minute to their friends in class and would say the Nano is “so cute, Daddy!,” people who are sick of terrible UI’s on terrible garbage phones, and people who want a simple but elegant experience without having to buy into the full iPhone ecosystem and pay a carrier like $2,000 over 2 years in service fees (“I don’t play many games, but it shouldn’t take 14 minutes to tap a new contact into my phone like it does with my existing Craptastic X79A-4 prepaid phone.)” These are people who are not intrigued by the depth and promise of a phone that some say could double as a netbook, aren’t impressed with an App store (yet), they want a simple phone that does a few things well…and maybe they will upgrade to an iPhone later when they see how cool of a leap it is from the Nano to the 3G.
iPhone Nano could storm that market, giving legions of people who hate their phones but can’t afford/don’t want a full iPhone and related expenses a serious upgrade option.
iPhone Nano would need to strip out lots of expensive options to make it affordable/profitable and deliver a simple experience. It would be a prepaid phone with a modest processor a la PA Semi. It would have bluetooth, and a camera, but that’s about it – no accelerometers, GPS or wifi. 4-8GB flash. Contacts, Mail, Calendar sync via Mobile Me. No App store, except a small set of games that run on the modest processor – Apple already has some “iPhone games” that run on the iPod Classic OS…something like that, easy for developers to throw together. Syncing over the air to Mobile Me – maybe Apple becomes an MVNO for this special prepaid service? Syncing of music, movies, games, etc. via bluetooth and/or usb cable.
The point is, I would pay $99 for a prepaid, stripped down iPhone Nano that costs $.10/minute on prepaid with an optional $10/month charge to sync to mobile me over the air if it means I could ditch my offensively inadequate and insanely clunky existing prepaid phone. There is no downside to a “crippled iPhone” because I would never commit to a real iPhone and Apple can deliver an experience that would engulf the traditional capabilities of prepaid phones. When you look at it from the viewpoint of a prepaid user, the idea shines.
Finally, how big is the “crappy” cellphone market? *EVERYONE* has a cell phone, but only 10% of us crave super-capable smartphones with all the bells and whistles. It’s simply a good numbers game for Apple to go after this market of undeserved cell phone users as they dwarf the number of people who need/want a smartphone.