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Here’s a shocker. Apple needs a low cost iPhone. Here’s another shocker. Apparently, the low cost iPhone is already here and we’re just not paying enough attention to figure it out.

Most of the tech media pundits have been clamoring for Apple to product a lower cost iPhone or cede the bottom of the food and profit chain to Samsung and other Android smartphones. In fact, hardly a day doesn’t go by without a headline about Apple’s upcoming entry-level iPhone.

Does the math really support an iPhone with a lower price tag?

So it would seem if Verizon’s latest smartphone sales numbers are an indication of what’s actually happening in the real world where customers buy products. Verizon sold 4-million iPhones in the most recent quarter, an increase of 25-percent. That’s all well and good, but get this.

The iPhone 5 made up only half of the 4-million units sold, and just over half of all Verizon smartphone sales. That means the other half of the iPhones sold last quarter were iPhone 4, and iPhone 4S– the iPhone models with lower prices. Lower. But not much lower.

An iPhone 5 on Verizon is priced $100 more than an iPhone 4S with a two year contract. The 8GB iPhone 4 model, which is over two years old already, is priced $99 less than an iPhone 4S. As in zero cost.

Spread out over a two year agreement, the iPhone 5 costs just over $8 a month more than the iPhone 4, which, in turn is barely $4 less than the iPhone 4S.

That’s crazy. Apple is selling as many iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S models as iPhone 5 models (on Verizon’s network), though the most recent iPhone is faster, lighter, better in every respect. $8 a month difference between the old model at the low end, and the most recent model at the high end.

That’s barely a trip to Starbucks.

If anything, Verizon’s numbers point out that people either don’t perceive much difference between iPhone models, or even a few dollars a month is a big deal in a bad economy. Judging from those numbers I’m inclined to believe that Apple might game some additional sales with a second tier iPhone.

That seems to work in the U.S. where price is an object. Or, put another way, many smartphone customers would rather have an old iPhone than a new BlackBerry, HTC, Droid, Google, or Samsung smartphone.

Name a company that gets more free PR than Apple. As the tech gadget maker underdog, Apple has a strong and loyal user base which extends to the blogosphere and traditional news media. As the world’s largest technology company with a once-high-flying stock, Apple is a huge criticism magnet, too. And, Apple has a long list of well known public enemies which ranges from Google to Samsung to Microsoft to Amazon and beyond.

In other words, hardly a day goes by without Apple showing up in the news, for good or bad. Although recently, it’s been mostly bad.

All of this free PR is beginning to cause a problem with sales. Apple started an annual release cycle with the iPhone in 2008, and, give or take a few months, has kept up with yearly upgrades of the world’s most popular smartphone platform.

That means savvy customers who pay attention to the news, the blogosphere, and have a sense of timing, know when Apple’s newest iPhone is about to hit the streets. What happens to iPhone sales for a few months before an expected and anticipated new release? Sales drop, sometimes dramatically.

That wave of PR which focuses on an upcoming iPhone release has a negative impact on the company’s revenue and profits.

The same wave of uncontrolled PR has begun to affect the iPad, as well. What does a potential buyer think when reading a headline that iPad shipments will decline as Apple ramps up a new iPad mini? They think, “Hmmm, maybe I should just wait a couple of months and get the newest version.”

Apple’s highly visible public persona creates a disproportionate amount of PR, which is both good and bad. It’s good because Apple gets plenty of promotion for free. It’s bad, because the company gets plenty of criticism that may not be deserved.

Worse, Apple’s sales begin to suffer in the period leading up to a new product release as customers wait for new gadgets, rather than buy the latest while it’s available now. How can Apple overcome those dangerous waves of PR?

Stop being so predictable. Instead of a yearly update, why not every six months. iPhone 5, then six months later, iPhone 5S. Then, six months later, iPhone 6. Ditto for iOS. iOS 6. Then iOS 6.5. Then iOS 7. Who among Apple watchers does not miss the great ‘One more thing…’ that marked Steve Jobs keynote presentations in years past. These days, the only surprising thing about Apple is that it’s not surprising anyone anymore.

You know what they say, ‘What goes around, comes around.’ In a saga that actually goes full circle (360-degrees, not the 180-degrees by Darth Vader to Obi Wan Kenobi), the hero is vanquished by the villain, then rises from the ashes to victory.

All we’ve heard about for the past 20 years is how Apple blew it to Microsoft. Once Windows ’95 hit the streets it was all over for Apple and the Mac. At one point, Microsoft’s Windows OS owned about 95-percent of the market for PCs. Apple should have licensed the Mac OS sooner. The Mac had become a footnote in personal computing history.

Well, almost a footnote. A funny thing happened on the way to ashes and ruin. Apple survived. The Mac survived. Both prospered. Today, Apple is the largest and most profitable computer company on the planet (just add iPad to the Mac’s numbers), and the Mac owns nearly half of all the profits among PC makers (sans iPad numbers).

Post-PC era, indeed.

Horace Dediu has the numbers at Asymco, and the picture isn’t as bad as it is for Android OS-based smartphones, Microsoft Windows Phone smartphones, or Nokia or BlackBerry, but you get the idea.

Losing to Microsoft might have been the best thing to ever happen to Apple. The Mac alone commands over three times the profit as Dell. Everyone else picks up the crumbs from Apple’s plate.

Why? What happened to the Mac that made it the darling of the industry, the must-have personal computer for discriminating buyers?

Apple didn’t stray from the company’s roots. Instead of racing to the bottom of the profitless pile, Apple forged ahead to make a better user experience on better hardware. OS X became a clear point of differentiation between the Mac and every other Windows PC maker.

It’s as simple as that.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that the iPod came along and handed that Apple experience to a few hundred million new customers, who could check out the new iPods and a Mac at the same time in Apple’s shiny news stores. That halo effect was extended more by the iPhone and iPad, whose customer base is many times larger than the Mac.

What’s the penalty for losing to Microsoft?

Apple has become the most profitable technology company, and the Mac commands the largest share of profits among PC makers. Yes, yes, the pundits say Apple must cut margins to survive in the future, but how much longer can those who don’t make much money selling their wares survive?

Life is a little different for those of us who live in a large metropolis vs. the suburbs. In much of America you drive wherever you go. For me in New York it’s more often public transportation with an occasional taxicab to get where I need to go.

What that means is that I tend to shop at many different smaller stores and when I run out of something and need to buy it again I can’t always remember where I bought what just ran out.

Does that make sense?

What if someone else had a similar problem and created an app for my iPhone that remembered what I bought and where I bought?

Is that worth 99-cents?

That’s what Shopster does. It’s a grocery list app that learns what you buy, where you buy it, and can remind you of it later when you need to buy it again.

The beauty of using Shopster is the two-fold approach to a shopping list. Yes, it’s good as a shopping list app. But as you check off each item on the list, Shopster records the location from the GPS in your iPhone. You can name each store or location as you go.

Also useful is the way Shopster lets you record the number of items you need to buy. Instead of popping up the keyboard so you can enter a number, a range of numbers is displayed so it’s only a single tap to record.

Shopster is nicely done, simple to use as both a shopping list app and a reminder app– except the reminder is where you bought each item.

To say that Apple set the standard for the modern smartphone and tablet is an understatement. The iPhone has been out for almost six years, and competitors are still unable to achieve parity with Apple’s flagship products and ecosystem.

Since only Apple divulges sales numbers of iPhone and iPad, analysts have to make educated guesses about how many smartphones and tablets are sold by competitors.

One easy way to see the gap between the guesses and real numbers is simply looking around.

How many Galaxy or Google or Amazon tablets do you see vs. the number of iPads? How many Galaxy or Google or Nokia or BlackBerry smartphones do you see, vs. the number of iPhones?

Another simple way is to see what happens at retail outlets whenever a new product is released. Where were the lines at stores that sold Nokia’s latest? Or, BlackBerry’s latest? Or, any smartphone running Android or Windows Phone?

The last major phone carrier in the U.S. to get Apple’s iPhone is T-Mobile. Small lines popped up at nearly every T-Mobile store when the iPhone was released. One published report said T-Mobile had almost 250,000 iPhones ready for sale.

T-Mobile said it was their best day of sales and activations. Ever.

What does it say when Apple’s competitors announce new products that compete with iPhone and iPad but never draw the same lines of eager customers to their stores?

Wouldn’t it be great if at the end of every month each manufacturer was required to state how many products were shipped, and how many actually sold that month? That would give us a better idea about how well some of the iPhone-killers are being killed instead of killing.

There’s truth in numbers. But there’s also lies, damned lies, and statistics. Why is it that the tech media community doesn’t press Apple’s competitors for real numbers, but instead relies on guesswork which is seldom, if ever verified?

Why?

Tech media, like media in general, prospers with controversy. When little controversy exists, it’s much easier to manufacture when you buy ink by the barrel.