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3G 16GB iPhone this year? - iPhone Accessories
Posted on: 9-10-2007
We all heard unconfirmed roumors that a new 16GB iPhone will be released in November this year, some say only in Europe, some say iPhone needs a new flagship, since the 4G model was replaced by the 8GB one.
Well, I'm sure that Apple will NOT release a 3G 16GB iPhone this year. I'm so sure of it that i'll eat my current iPhone if they do. And i bet allot of current iPhone owners, and especially those that payed $600 for it, will follow my example.
But i'm sure it won't happen and here are my reasons why:
1. Product Life Cycle
This is one of the oldest and most reliable laws in marketing. All new products, especially inovative ones like the iPhone, have a life cycle of four stages (five if you include saturation, but IT market does not have a saturation stage, or it is too short to mention).
These are:
-Introduction: New product is released and only people that are open to new and established customers of the company buy the new product. Kinda reminds you of fan lines in front of Apple stores, doesn't it?
- Growth: The product is adopted by more and more consumers, people that heard reviews of the product in the media or from friends. Sales boost up in this interval.
- Maturity: The product is established, consumers know of it and it's featues, there is a constant number of people that buy the product. The sales remain constant at this point. In IT this interval is very short, since new products are released.
- Decline: A sad moment for the product, sales tend to drop, in IT the drop is very fast, because in most cases a new product was released to take it's place.
Well it's kinda obvious that the 8GB iPhone it's somewhere in the first part of the Growth interval and the release of a 16GB model will push it into Decline. If you run Apple, would you do that?
2. iPod release interval
If you look at this picture you can see how Apple sees his iPhone: as a part of the iPod product line. The top of the line one true, but still a member of the happy iPod family. Now if you look at iPod's history you can see that since from it's release in 2000 it was improved with a new generation at an interval of around 1.5 years. And you can say that 2007 release of the 6'th gen iPods was pretty close to the release of the iPhone. That leads us to conclusion that we can expect a new iPhone, together with new iPods, in about 1-1.5 years from now.
3. Reaction to the $200 price cutout
You all heard of the reaction to the price drop of 8BG iPhone. Apple even had to give a $100 store credit to calm down spirits of the fans that bought a iPhone for $600 in the past two months since it's release. Now can you imagine the reaction of the release of a 16GB iPhone in just one month from now? I bet Apple does.
4. Not a pressing need
I mean yea 3G would be nice, but the current EDGE does it's job. Browsing is smooth, pages load satisfyingly fast at first time and thanks to a clever Safari cache system they load instantly at your second visit, all iPhone online features work as designed. So why change something that works?
5. US market was allways first
Apple allways released it's top products first in the US and followed to Europe and the rest of the world. There is no doubt that iPhone will come to Europe, and it is likely that it will happen this year, but it will be the 8GB EDGE iPhone we all know and love. There are already doubts that T-Mobile Germany leaked ad for a 16GB 3G iPhone is real.
6. No pressing competition
Now I need your assistance on this! What are iPhone's competitors at this moment? What other phones offer 16GB, 3G, multy-touchscreen, web browsing, iTunes, video player, accelerometers and let's not forget the coolness factor of an Apple product? None, you say? I think you're right on this one! So if you run alone why force yourself to run faster?
7. Why kill the 8GB iPhone?
We all know what happened to the dear 4GB iPhone. It got eat up by it's big brother and was forced to leave the stage. Even that there was a $200 difference between those two for the past two months, people were ready to pay to get the best. So if a 16GB iPhone comes tomorrow, Apple might just stop production of the 8GB one.
8. 3G is hungry
Now this one comes from Mr. Jobs Himself. According to this interview iPhone has no 3G because current 3G chipsets are too energy consuming. And considering the fast and cheap battery replacement program or the DIY kit that can lead to smoking results, reducing battery use at the cost of 3G seems like a good ideea.
9. 3G chips are bulky at this moment
In the same interview cited above Mr. Jobs said, and for good reason, that current 3G chipsets also take too much space, as you can see in this comparisson 3G chipset is like 3 times larger than EDGE one. So no 3G if you want to have a slim iPhone.
10. Apple would want to avoid headlines like: "Angry user chocked to death attempting to eat his 8GB iPhone after Apple released a new 16GB model".
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