Why the iPhone 5 Will Be Cheaper
Fortunately for future iPhone buyers Apple appear to be loosening ties between their hardware and their preferred telcos. Evidence of this is clear when you consider that the iPad has been carrier agnostic since its launch, the iPhone has recently been made available for contract-free purchase in the United States, and Vodafone New Zealand's recent iPhone subsidy cuts. On top of all that the availability of alternative consumer level smartphones - many of which are available contract-free for very reasonable prices - must be leaving buyers wondering why they would to tie themselves down for two years with what may not necessarily be their preferred telco.
Apple knows that they have to start making the iPhone more accessible to those who would prefer to purchase the device contract-free, and with any luck that will manifest in the form of lower prices and wider retail availability of contract-free options when the iPhone 5 is released later this year. If they don't then their iTunes cash cow faces the jeopardy of a diminishing iOS user base, and Apple simply can't and won't allow that to happen.
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Comment by gzt, on 3-Jul-2011 14:02 , user id: 52996)
An iPhone mini would meet many of those requirements.
Even so, Apple will want to maintain the premium price category, and to some degree they will always need carriers to push devices into the market.
Comment by Johnny, on 3-Jul-2011 14:54 , user id: )
Idiot. There's better specs too. Why do you think it's thicker? Also a radio isn't cheap. Quad bands can cost like $100 I think. GPS I don't know. It has more RAM I think, a better camera, and more too.
Comment by Curly, on 3-Jul-2011 16:33 , user id: 5213)
Fully agree they are well over priced even though I like the iPhone 4
Comment by insane, on 4-Jul-2011 02:31 , user id: 33057)
Its a simple case of suply and demand. As long as there are Apple fanboys out there willing to pay top dollar for overpriced phones the high prices will remain.
Comment by Kiwipixter, on 4-Jul-2011 09:37 , user id: )
Alastair, the iPhone 5 wont be cheaper, but the 4 will be. Its simple practices of product positioning in the market, economies of scale, production efficiencies etc... Carriers are just sales channels, only Vodafone in NZ and they sell contract only, i don't think Apple forced this. You can get contract-free devices from Apple. I don't your point on iTunes user base base declining, figures have shown otherwise due to iPhone and iPad.
Comment by Chris, on 5-Jul-2011 07:43 , user id: )
Consumers.... buy buy buy ...consume consume consume....buy buy buy ... without thinking..
First of all.. lining up like sheep .... then forking out gazzilions for the iPhone..
Really..Seriously... Dammit.. People.. are you that gullible..foolish.. easily pleased.. easily taken in... shallow.. really shallow.. .. Apparently so.. idiots...
It's a nice phone.. but F*** me.. stupidly over priced... and the carriers themselves cashed in soooo nicely.. actually, they robbed people here in the UK..
Regardless of the features or it being the best phone at the time... seriously ..catch a wake up!
Comment by jonherries, on 7-Jul-2011 09:38 , user id: 39005)
I agree that Apple is going to move down the market. It will be through generally cheaper component prices, a reduction in profit margin and less flash memory (going down to 4 or 8 GB as this is a cheaper than 16/32/64).
The thing that interests me is whether this will be in the iphone 4 form factor, a modified touch, or 3gs. I would guess if they can leverage a single form factor that would be cheaper that keeping two types of assembly process.
At this point though the iphone 5 is going to have to be pretty different/lots better to tempt people not to just buy the cheap model.
Given apple isn't about selling a slightly faster processor or a slightly more ram, I would guess we could be looking at an LTE model, but if so it might not be ready for some time.
I wonder if the selling point is going to be much better battery life? I saw a new battery is in production in Korea recently, which should add some extra life to mobile devices...
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Comment by tdgeek, on 3-Jul-2011 12:46 , user id: 33160)
Agree, they need to enter all markets not just the high price end. Perhaps having a iPhone3GS as entry level price, iPhone4 16Gb at the next level, and iPhone5 at the top level. After all, they really compete with Android on the basis of one phone, and a high end one at that.