Hit-or-miss Taiwanese publication Digitimes In a report on Tuesday backpedaled on its previous claims that Apple would be launching a cheaper, yet larger-screened, iPhone variant in 2013 to combat a growing low-end "phablet" market.
Apple current iPhone 5 features a 4-inch screen.
While DigiTimes reversed its original take on big-screen iPhone debut, the publication is hedging its bets and contends that Apple will eventually release such a handset, just not this year.
The report went on to agree with the The Wall Street Journal, which previously claimed that Apple is planning on releasing two separate iPhone models this year. In its piece, the WSJ cited sources as saying both a successor to the current iPhone 5 and a budget smartphone, possibly made of polycarbonate, would launch sometime in 2013.
Adding to Tuesday's rumor, DigiTimes noted that both the next-generation iPhone and rumored handset will feature in-cell touchscreen panels. The current iPhone 5 already boasts the advanced screen tech that allows for a thinner device by integrating touch sensing components within the LCD array. Yield rates of the complex displays caused supply constraints when the latest iPhone launched last year, but those production issues are said to have been corrected.
The latest rumor may be unfounded, however, as Apple is thought to have chosen older touchscreen tech, in addition to non-Retina resolution panels, with the iPad mini in attempts to capitalize on already slim margins. In-cell screens are not yet an industry standard and therefore substantially raise a device's bill of materials.
"Hey, guys, look at me, I'm an idiot!"
"Just kidding; I was only pretending to be an idiot!"
Anything to get AI's uncritical continuing coverage.
I think that the Galaxy SIII is the main source of Samsung's profits.
I think that the iPhone 4S costs more to make than the iPhone 5 does.
I think Apple wants to get rid of the 30-pin connector soon.
This is consistent with taking the iPad 2 and stuffing it into a smaller, thinner case with a Lightning connector and renaming it iPad mini. I expect Apple to do this in 2013.
3. A larger high resolution iPhone designed to beat large Android phones.
Such a device will be introduced if and only if Apple determines that selling two different sizes of new iPhone would be more profitable than continuing to sell just one. I'll believe it when I see it.
Oh, oh... you're asking for a lecture from the local business brainiac.
So what logic would lead you (and Island Hermit who apparently has no desire to ever learn anything) conclude that the iPhone 4S costs more to make than the iPhone 5?
Old components start going back up in price after they've been off the market for long enough. RAM for a first-gen Mac Pro, for example, is more expensive than for the most recent one, and more expensive than it was at its cheapest.
Of course, that's because these components aren't being made anymore, unlike the iPhones'.
The problem is you can't unhear a rumor. It's irresponsible of DigiTimesInsider to spread lies unreliable gossip for the click traffic.
So, what you are saying is that no manufacturer has ever changed there manufacturing process so that it is cheaper. In other words Henry Ford's original lines had the same efficiencies as the lines that exist today at Ford. By your logic each MBP and every iMac should have been more expensive than the one that preceded it.
Apple changes its processes, along with Foxconn, to make the product as efficiently and cheaply as possible. Maybe the 5 lines are cheaper than the 4S lines because of changes made to the manufacturing process... but we wouldn't know that, would we? Well, would we?
Yet you rant and rave and call me names... and all I've ever said is that I don't think the margins are higher. I even said they might be the same.
I don't think there is anyone outside of Cook and Oppenheimer who know the true costs... and especially not you and your inexperienced guesstimates.
By the way... you have not shown me one Apple document that shows definitively the costs of the 4S and the 5 to manufacture. You show me that and maybe I'll believe you. Otherwise you are just a big windbag.
To everyone else... I remember all the shouting and screaming when Amazon started producing the Fire. One crowd said that the Fire was being produced for $149 in parts, another had it pegged at $199 in parts and yet another had it pegged at $229. All of these estimates gave a list of parts and the corresponding price for each part... yet they all came in at different prices. So, can you see why I won't believe some hothead on the internet about costs. It's all very difficult to decipher without the actual figures.
You're missing some obvious facts from your long list.
1. Out of all Android phones, most are the same size screen as an iPhone or smaller. The larger ones are not actually the bulk of the market.
2. The ones that are large, are currently not "beating the iPhone."
If larger than 5" phones are all the rage like the detractors say, why would Apple take a few years to think about it and then come up with a 4.5" screen, only to change their mind less than a year later and decide they should have gone with a 5" screen? If they truly believed that a bigger phone screen was better or if they truly thought that this was a segment of the market that they "needed to address" why wouldn't they do it when they changed the size of the original phone six months ago?
Anyway you look at it, for the people pushing the 5" or bigger screen jazz are right, then you have to assume that Apple is not only almost criminally stupid, but that they are also cripplingly indecisive at the same time. You have to believe they are all running around with their hair on fire reacting to every slight bump in the market like complete idiots. You have to believe that they just have no idea what to do right now and are grasping at straws. Is that likely?
The only real legs the whole "It needs to be bigger" fantasy has, is the fact that there *might* be a small market developing for the so-called "phablet" as in a small 5-7" sitabletze device with a stylus that is also a phone. What people don't seem to see however, is that this is the same market the iPad mini plays in.
Apple could decimate/capture the entire "phablet" market overnight with two simple steps, one of which is likely already underway.
1. Let the phone app reside on the iPad mini as well as the iPhone.
2. Add a stylus and an API for same.
This would immediately turn the iPad mini into a better "Phablet" than any of the competition. They'd be wiped out. It wouldn't cost Apple a thing and could be done in a month or two tops.
Why would anyone buy a 5" galaxy note when an only slightly bigger iPad mini with a stylus could do so much more? Why would anyone who likes the idea of a large phone that's also a small tablet, not instantly prefer the iPad mini if you could also use it as a phone? If your answer is that the smaller Galaxy note is easier to hold in your hand and therefore makes a better phone, then congratulations you've just argued in a complete circle and proven that in fact, "phones" should be smaller.
Apple is making solid, rational choices with a definite long term plan in mind. Everyone else is just reacting to whatever they think the market is doing.
Who's winning? And why is everyone arguing that Apple should stop with this silly long term planning and react like a chump to whatever the latest analyst *thinks* is happening?
Of course they backpedalled on that claim.
Why would a larger screened iPhone be CHEAPER?
What kind of logic is that? Is the iPad 2 cheaper than the iPad Mini???
Also, compare 3.5" and 2.5" HDDs.
I agree with some of what you said.
Now would be the optimum time for Apple to add an "iPhone Min.i" I expect such a device to be a repackaged iPhone 4S. They'll probably remove the pricy and easily damaged glass back and replace it with either iPod style aluminum or as WSJ says polycarbonate plastic and add a lightning connector as well.
I imagine removing the glass back panel alone and using newer screen and battery technology should help it trim some weight, and potentially be thinner than the iPhone 5 (maybe the cheaper iPhone will have the "Air" moniker).
Anyway such a device could retail for $349, half the price of the 5S.
As far as a larger phone to "beat Android." I have one question. Is price the main driving factor of a smartphone purchase, or is screen size? Just using one example. In Verizon's latest reports half of all the iPhones they sold (meaning over 30% of ALL smartphones they sold) were iPhone 4/4S.
As you know the 4/4S have tiny screens yet they were flying off shelves and MANY people chose the 3.5 inch 4/4S over 4.5 inch Androids that were the same price. So obviously screen size alone isn't the main driving factor for most smartphone purchases.
Anyway aside from all that I wouldn't be surprised if Apple made a 5 inch iPhone. But I'll probably stick with the 4 inch size when the bigger one does come out.
They could have but... They're still selling the iPad 2 for $399 and people are STILL BUYING THEM! Pure profit!
Exactly. I wonder if they make more this way than the other.
Out of all Android phones, most are the same size screen as an iPhone or smaller. The larger ones are not actually the bulk of the market.
Correct... and the bulk of that market is actually a bunch of small, cheap, $100 phones in developing nations.
Samsung's flagship Galaxy S was 4" in 2010... the GSII grew to 4.3" in 2011... and then to 4.8" with the GSIII today.
The Moto Droid X and HTC Evo were also 4.3" way back in 2010 too. And both those companies have phones from 4.7" to 5" today.
So what do those companies know that Apple doesn't? If the increase in screen size was a mistake... the Galaxy SIII would have gone back to 4". But it didn't.
I know, I know... Apple has the best selling single model in the world. And it's only 4"
All I'm saying is... it wouldn't kill them to make a larger phone. There is definitely a market for a phone beyond 4"
The iPad 2 was not renamed or repackaged, it's still on sale as it was originally. The iPad mini is a completely different product.
"business brainiac"... Now that's a nice title. Kind of like computer nerd, only worse.
While most a droid phones are smaller or similar in size to the iPhone, the flagship products are all big screen phablets. If apple chose to erode the market share of those products, would they make a larger phone, or an iPad nano?