Tuesday, July 10, 2007 Limpag: Cheaper iPhone? By Max Limpag Celltalk
NANO. Bloggers last week started speculating that Apple may be planning a cheaper version of the iPhone, akin to the Nano version of the iPod. Nano, according to InformationWeek, is the brand Apple uses for the no-frills version of iPod that plays only digital audio files. A patent application by Apple sparked the speculation among bloggers.
The company applied for a patent on the use of a scroll wheel, the interface popularized by iPods, for a “multifunctional device that is capable of operating in multiple modes as, for example, a phone mode for communications and a media player mode for playing audio files, video files and the like.” The iPhone, launched to deafening buzz recently, uses a touchscreen as interface. It doesn’t have keypads or buttons. What it has is a screen that serves as virtual keypads and buttons that you press with your fingers; styluses won’t work.
A none-touchscreen phone, presumably, is cheaper because of the materials used in manufacturing the gadget. But how can the scroll wheel be adapted for use in a phone? How can you, for example, type text messages with just a scroll wheel? Will you have to use the wheel to control a cursor that will hover over a virtual keyboard? But knowing Apple’s design kung-fu, they’d figure out a clever way to incorporate the scroll wheel into a phone.
DISSECTING THE IPHONE. Barely a day after the iPhone hit store shelves when a website posted an article, complete with pictures, of how they broke open and disassembled the gadget. PC World also featured the work of a market research firm in breaking apart an iPhone to check the device’s internal components. The company said the components used for the $599 8GB iPhone cost $249.85. Among the things that stood out in the articles about the components of the phone is that the battery is soldered to the device and you can’t replace it by yourself. You’ll have to spend to have it replaced by Apple. A consumer group in the United States has complained that Apple should have informed people about this before launching the device.
WHERE’S THE COMPETITION? How will the major phone manufacturers react to the iPhone? Steve Jobs, according to reports, isn’t bent on world domination just yet. He plans to target just one percent of the global phone market. It would be great to have Wi-Fi capability as a standard mid-end (okay, that may be asking too much too soon; make it high-end) feature of mobile phones. T-Mobile launched last week a plan that will make two models of cell phones (a Nokia unit and a Samsung) make calls through Wi-Fi hot spots. These phones contain just basic features but the ability to route calls through Wi-Fi is really cool. It’s something the iPhone can’t do. Unfortunately, this type of connectivity may be years away in the Philippines.
Telcos are fighting Internet telephony or VOIP (for Voice over Internet Protocol) because they see it as killing international long distance, a cash cow. Mobile VOIP will threaten what may be their biggest cash cow.
