The iPhone is selling below expectation, but that doesn’t mean much. Since when does expectation not follow an indefinite upward trend? Investors know that indefinite upward trends don’t exists. As usuall they limited their initial production batch. So they “sell-out” even when sales are below expectations. That’s just good marketing. 5,000,000 is a lot of phones.
The long-term determination of a post-Jobs Apple may not be their marketing. It definitely won’t be their screen tech. It most-likely won’t even be their processor. What it will probably be is their battery.
Apple has a long history of sealing batteries into their products almost as though they never expect this consumable part to ever wear out. A throwback to 15 years ago that has since been innovated out of everything right down to musical greeting cards. However, Apple is always thinking about the release cycle.
For the iPhone 4 the official cost of replacing your battery is $79 and up to 5 days (Apple Service Page). However, with most cell plans, the phone itself doesn’t even cost that much. So what will people do? They will buy the next one. Ingenious… but…
A big BUT, is that LTE (4G) is a battery burner. If Apple’s iPhone 5 battery is anywhere near as obsolete as some of the other components (like the screen tech, it’s still LCD instead of OLED which also happens to burn much more battery), then they will be disappointing users within a month or two of release when the charge capacity falls. Even under warranty a 5 day turnaround is no fun.
So come Thanksgiving time, keep an ear out for the news.
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The key differences bteween the original iPhone and the newer 3G model are:1. The inclusion of a 3G radio which allows data to be transferred at about 200-300% faster rates (roughly, assuming good signal quality), compared the to the EDGE radio in the original iPhone.2. They changed the case. The design is more of a wedge shape versus the rounded shape of the original iPhone. According to most people, this makes the new 3G iPhone more comfortable to hold in the hand. The original had a brushed aluminium backplate, and the new one has more of a hard plastic back. Also they added a new color choice to the phone: white.3. They added a GPS so Google maps now has a real-time updating GPS versus the previous system which relied on something like trangulation of cell phone towers to determine location but which only gave a relative idea.4. They improved the battery life the battery lasts about 2 hours longer for calls.5. They unrecessed the headphone jack on the new iPhone the original iPhone had a recessed jack that made it hard to plug in a lot of headphones.6. They changed the screen color from a vaguely bluish tinge to more of a yellowish tinge. It’s not easily noticed but some people prefer the original over the newer one.7. They improved the microphone quality and the speaker quality to make it easier to listen to music without headphones and it makes calls clearer.8. They changed the method of signing up for a contract you used to be able to wander in and buy one with cash originally without having to sign a contract. You just walked in and bought it and walked out and then figured out the contract when you plugged it into a computer at home.9. They changed the price. It appears that they lowered the price by lowering it from $ 399 to $ 199 (for the 8GB model), but they raised the monthly fee by $ 10 which adds $ 240 over the two year mandatory contract period so it costs $ 40 more (over 2 years) than the original one.They will likely continue to come out with a new model every summer. This would be similar to what Apple does with other products like iPods, so it’s a fairly safe guess that next summer around June/July 2009, there will be a newer version of the iPhone.