Apple has a history of pricing its budget devices well beyond the consensus on what the device “needs” to be priced at to be competitive. The iPad mini launched at $329, when analysts said it needed to launch at $249 to compete with the likes of the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7. The iPad mini is now the most popular 7-inch tablet in the world. Likewse, the iPod nano launched at $199, when analysts said it needed to cost half that to compete with cheapie MP3 players.

So the “cheap” iPhone won’t be as cheap as some would have liked. 

Agreed. Lets call the next iPhone, the iPhone 6. I always felt weird about the iPhone naming scheme used by Apple.

iPhone naming schemes isn’t an obvious thing. But Apple seems to have fixed this with the iPad. Why not with the iPhone?

Phil Schiller already said that it doesn’t want Apple to be too predictable. What does it mean for the next iPhone? 

“Today, we’re introducing the new iPhone” (aka iPhone 5S or iPhone 6)

“Today, we’re introducing the seventh generation iPhone”

“Today, please welcome the ultimate iPhone.”

I don’t know. You tell me.

parislemon:

Rene Ritchie of iMore:

The “iPhone 5S” problem is the idea that Apple has become predictable coupled with the perception that the next big thing might just come from somewhere else.

Agreed. But it’s also important to remember that the lack of huge, sweeping changes every year is a strength in some ways as well. Ritchie hits on the economies of scale aspect. Another: consumers (and to some extent, developers) already know and understand what they’re going to get with the iPhone. With some of these other new devices, it’s a total crapshoot. It’s “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” versus “new”.

Of course, not changing things or adapting is a recipe for disaster long term. But it’s not really that Apple isn’t changing things, they’re just doing so methodically and sweating out the details as ticks lead to tocks.

I do definitely agree that it hurts Apple in some ways to be too predictable with release cycles. But I also think it would be a mistake to get too cute there. Release things when they’re done. Not too soon, not too late. Product perfection will always trumps timing.

This is only one side of the medal. iOS is another story. They have to move faster because that have to, because they can too.

This piece from Marco Arment seems to nails every bits and bytes of why Apple will (and must) do a larger screen iPhone. Again. 

chartier:

Rumors of an even larger iPhone are floating around again. Marco Arment thinks a 5-inch iPhone (ok: 4.94-inch) is totally possible and went so far as to put together the math and a couple mockups to prove it.

It might happen, it might not, though this is starting to feel like another “there’s enough smoke so there must be fire” scenario. I’m skeptical as to whether I’ll try one, mostly because other 5-inch devices still feel like they’re over the tipping point for me. But hey, I went to college. I’m open to new things.

However, the first thing that struck me after reading this is that it’s going to take off like wildfire—crazy ideas + actual purty pictures always play well in the tech blogging scene, but especially the Apple tech blogging scene.

Of course, Cook already non-denied it—notice he didn’t actually say no, he just praised Apple’s latest creation. That’s called “not boxing yourself into a corner”.

That’s the second thing I realized. Cook seems to be doing better than Jobs at not boxing Apple into a corner when it comes to competing, even in an instance like this where it is arguably late to the party. Remember when Jobs shot down a 7-inch iPad? Maybe you can argue it was a smart competitive move, but that’s because the first 7-inch tablets weren’t very good, which gave Apple a little more time to show up fashionably late, but do it right.

But sometimes Apple changes a market, and sometimes a market changes without Apple, which is inarguably the case when it comes to larger smartphones. Plus, phones have been trending towards this much longer than the lead time Apple had with the 7-inch iPad. When it comes to 5-inch smartphones, and assuming it does one, Apple is a bit past the window of looking just fashionably late.

Regardless, Marco is right. However crazy a phone this size sounded back around 2007 and 08, they’re a staple now, and plenty of customers are surely passing up the iPhone based solely on the perception of a smaller, and therefore inferior, screen size. The option of a 5-inch iPhone would meet the demands of a changing market and, when you look at the math, involve a negligible impact on most of the developer ecosystem. Whether you think you want one or not, Cook left the door wide open for this, and giving customers what they want just makes sense.

I think Mr. Arment arguments are sound and make the iPhone Math even more plausible. But one thing strikes me: is it enough to have a bigger screen without increasing resolution just to keep current apps working? I’m thinking of increasing the screen canvas to show more information but at the same resolution of the retina iPad.