The cat is out of the bag. Apple has a new iPhone on the way. What brainiac among technopunditry figure that out? All of them.
On the radio today I heard a local DJ prognosticator talk about Apple’s hype machine; the excessive pre-launch marketing the company puts into new products. Really, Rush Limbaugh? Apple says diddly squat about what’s coming out the pipeline until it’s on the way. And squat is pretty much what everyone who claims to know about the new iPhone really knows about the new iPhone.
iPhone 5′s Good, Bad, Ugly, & Reality
Yes, of course the new iPhone will be faster. That much we know. It’ll also be, uh, well, improved. Thinner. Yeah, that’s it. Thinner. And weigh less. Sure. Lighter. And get longer battery life. Uh huh. That’s the reality with every release of a new iPhone.
The good is that we can expect improvements that will make us want to ditch our barely year old (and aging fast) iPhone 4 models for the latest.
The bad is that, well, we don’t know squat about the details except for one thing. Think about this for a moment. Apple cruises along for awhile, new model after new model, and then, when we least expect it, springs something on us that is so cool, so chic, so wantable that we’re willing to even use AT&T to get it.
What’s ugly? The competition’s fortunes if Apple does what I think they’ll do. Multiple iPhones. Entry level. And the iPhone everyone else wants. Both will run iOS 5. Both will be full featured and better than last year’s models. Both will remain competitively priced, but not the lowest on the block.
iCloud? Check. iOS 5? Check. New iPhone? Check. What’s missing?
What about those two orphaned products we seldom hear much about anymore? Remember the iPod? Remember AppleTV? Would you be surprised to hear something about those stocking stuffers just a month or two before holiday shopping season? Me neither. But whatever it is, we can safely say that something wicked this way comes.
What’s on your list?
It will be interesting to see if we see any iPod developments, that’s a good point. I mean, beyond the iPod touch, the iPod nano and the iPod shuffle haven’t been touched in ages. Of course, my iPod nano (3rd or 4th gen) hasn’t been used in ages, though I may break it out this weekend for a bike ride (I don’t want to use my phone because I need that at the end of my ride).
AppleTV, I doubt there’ll be that much interesting except updates to support iCloud content.
I’d be curious to see if we get the long anticipated rack-mountable update to the Mac Pro using the newer Westmere-EX CPUs…
You’re right about one thing. Nobody knows what Apple brings to the table but Apple. I think we’ll see a surprise or two; either price or two phones, and maybe something extra.
After the MobileMe fiasco, Apple will need to make iCloud shiny, clean, and usable.