The one on the right didn’t looks so good. A big lump. Like the iPad was a giant iPod Touch, that is just a giant iPod nano. I doubt about this. Anyways the 3GS and 4 is still on the market, so they sort of has different types.

I do not really care. If they would release a phone on something other than Att (or Verzion). I am quite happy with my Nexus One on T-Mobile and 4G. My girlfriend has an iPhone4 and it is so so so so so slow on Att’s 3G, she ends up using my phone most of the time to search for things. Add to the fact that Gingerbread is out and Honeycomb is coming soon-ish. I really see no reason to get an iPhone ever.

Though I am excited about the new MacBook Pro line and a 1440×900 resolution on my 13″ work horse.

//j

Well, they may have learned from their new AppleTV that having a lower price point can be important. I think they will keep a similar form factor/price and add more features and storage capacity for the iPhone, and perhaps make a lower priced flip phone based on their current iPod Nano. (Just the Nano feature set with phone and texting functionality added).

Never! Would kinda kill the cult of it, wouldn’t it?

Doubt it.

But if these two designs were in fact implemented, one of the author’s speculative statement is seriously flawed:
“a super-slim wedge shape for the top-end model… would create a phone that slips seamlessly into the pocket of a fancy suit, (albeit, this is hardly a sartorial consideration for Steve Jobs).”

Most “fancy suits” usually come with four roomy coat pockets and more than adequate pants pockets.

Jeans, the preferred gab of SJ, feature tighter pockets (front and back), necessitating a greater need for a tapered design more akin to the MacBook Air, to facilitate pocket entry!

I’m not an Apple fanboy by any means (iPhone is the only Apple product I own). But everytime I read an article that states the “threat of Android” I laugh a little. There’s no threat. Android sells more because it offers more phones on more carriers. Period. What’s the phone that everyone wants? The iPhone. So watch what happens to the “threat” when Verizon jumps on the iPhone. And by the way, despite their chest-thumping, Verizon will jump…there have been plenty of graphs comparing iPhone market growth vs the growth of every other phone Verizon sells, and it ain’t pretty. So when their current business model stops working (and $300 per share tells me that’s a long ways off), Apple isn’t changing a thing.

Also agree with Gho5t…Apple does not want to be a mass-market phone producer or they would’ve done it three years ago.

I’m not so sure the cost of the phone is what’s stopping most people from buying an iPhone. It’s the bloody data plan prices! I just can’t afford $70-100 a month simply to USE what I’ve already paid $200 for.

Living about $50/month over the poverty line, I’m just too poor to be an iPhone user. What is needed is much more competitive data/voice/text plans. Making an iPhone Play with the nano’s kiddie aesthetics is all well and good, but most kids will want an iPhone no matter what the hardware looks like/costs… the really big deal is ongoing monthly charges. Change that and Apple will have performed the coup-de-grace on Android.

Not to beat a couple ugly dead horses, but both of the speculative mock ups miss the design mark by a few million miles.
-Where would you put the Dock Connector on the “Air”? This has been on the bottom of every iPhone released to date, but your mock up leaves no room for its placement there.
-The wedge shape works well on a laptop that you’d want resting at an angle for more comfortable typing, not a phone you’d like to hold up to your ear to use or hold with both hands to play many of the available games. It’d be really top heavy, and too uncomfortable for long periods of use.
-The “Play” is completely unnecessary. Apple’s minimal aesthetics on the iPhone lend well to cases, bumpers, covers, etc. that people will mostly buy to protect & individualize their iPhone. Multiple colors aren’t needed.
-The Nano doesn’t run iOS, and to confuse the issue even further by having an iPhone that looks very similar to it is ridiculous. (The AppleTV does run iOS so lets start crazy rumors about being able to plug a headset in and use it for VoIP calling).

Apple will keep their same business model (Why fix what ain’t broken?), and, hopefully, just expand its carrier in the US.

I liked the mock-ups, and it’s certainly a sound theory.. but I’d rather see things like a slide-out keyboard, bigger screen, better battery life and a higher end camera.

Frankly, I don’t think either model is even remotely possible. The costs involved with doing this to a tremendously successful line would be akin to product suicide.

A newer iPhone with a slimmer formfactor a la iPod Touch 4th gen would be a consideration and would be a consumer draw as long as the technology inside was able to be condensed enough to physically fit inside but the idea of a “toy” version would only make sense if it was to be a model aimed at younger (tweens and teens) consumers and was intended to be used as a familial communication model with location monitoring through GPS but that would be about the limit. We all saw how successful that little phone released 2 or 3 years ago for children was which allowed for calling one or two numbers (I think it was called the Mosquito but I may be wrong). Apple is far too savvy for that sort of predesignated fail.

Personally, I would think that the folks in Cupertino will beef up the A4, add more memory upward to at least a gigabyte or two and MAYBE increase the internal storage to 64GB like the top end Touch and obviously, address the antenna issue (as seen with the new patents with the antenna in the logo) but that would be about it. Thinner and more powerful with more storage and processing memory. Improvements will be incremental and solid as opposed to drastic or radical shifts.

Otherwise I think we will see the iPad 2 with dual cameras, better sound, display and more memory.There is also possibly a 7 inch form (iPad Nano?) with the features of the current iPad aimed more directly at the ebook market and commuting crowd which may also incorporate the dual cameras but not a lot more power or memory. 3G and wifi would be mandatory with possible LTE capability as well.

I have no illusions that the products are already near completion and we may or may not get controlled leaks as the release dates approach but all I can say is we don’t know yet.