Well, this is juicy! Following yesterday’s report that Apple was already testing an LTE-equipped iPhone with carriers comes this insider photo, showing that AT&T is secretly installing LTE equipment in at least one retail Apple store. Whoa!
The safe bet is that the iPhone 5 will stick with 3G instead of lightning fast LTE 4G mobile broadband, but not so fast! A new report on Monday says that Apple’s 4G-capable carrier partners are already testing iPhones with LTE capability.
Apple has told its handset suppliers to expect a boatload of iPhone orders for the second half of 2011, reportedly increasing the initial number to 56 million from 50 million units. Half of those handsets are for the much-anticipated iPhone 5, according to a Monday report.
Most of Apple’s money comes from recently invented gadgets. More than two-thirds of Apple’s revenue comes from product types that didn’t even exist five years ago (iPhone and iPad). And 78% of Apple’s income is made by products unimaginable just ten years ago (throw in iPod and iTunes).
That means, in order to stay on the same growth curve in the current decade, Apple will have to invent product categories as new as the iPod, iPhone and iPad were, right?
Wrong.
The new products were part of a killer strategy Apple came up with in 1997. Apple will dominate the future by sticking to the strategy, not by trying to invent more product categories.
Apple’s annual iPod media event traditionally happens during September, and we’re hoping that this year’s is going to be pretty spectacular. In addition to the final previews, and possibly the public release, of iOS 5, we’re hoping that elusive iPhone 5 finally shows its face.
While we’ve heard many, many rumors surrounding the fifth-generation device, and indeed the next-generation iPod touch, we’re yet to hear a specific date for their unveiling. Until now.
In the latest series of iPhone 5 rumors, a new report has surfaced that strings together months of murmurs relating to a second iPhone model release this Fall. This time, it’s believed that Apple will introduce a free, ‘iCloud’ iPhone alongside a new flagship device.
This second, low-cost iPhone would tie heavily into Apple’s iCloud service for streaming and syncing data, and the device is rumored to consist of cheaper parts combined with current parts in the iPhone 4.
Reddit’s consensus is that this Apple Store is in Switzerland, and this gentleman packing an assault rifle is just one of Switzerland’s many soldiers just walking around with his BFG in one of the most heavily armed countries in the world.
Our guess? He wants to have a leverage point when the Genius Bar tells him his iPhone has one too many pink moisture indicators for warranty replacement.
There’s not much to say about this right now, but Bloomberg apparently has this hypothetical iPhone 5 bills of material breakdown floating around their servers.
It hasn’t been tied to an article yet, but it is pretty interesting. I wonder how far off they’ll end up being.
The downside of the iPhone’s gargantuan success as a money maker for Apple is that it can also have an “outsized impact” on Apple profits. The iPhone contributes 49.2 percent of Apple stock value, one analyst warns. Wall Street also said the iPad has replaced the iPod as the tech giant’s halo product, buoying sales of other Apple products. Even so, at least one analyst thinks that Apple could go as high as $540 a share.
The drawback to success is you’re only as good as your last killer product. Perhaps that’s what Apple executives were thinking when they recently told a Wall Street analyst any rumored low-cost iPhone would have to be more than out-cheap Android, but be a ‘category-killer’ like the iPad and iP
hone.