Apple Considers Cheaper iPhone

It's been the question that people have now been asking for a couple of years.  Why do Apple just have one iPhone on the market at a time?  If you look at their traditional consumer market with iPods they're very used to having multiple devices and form factors available to buy concurrently.  Now it would appear Apple are finally reconsidering this position.

According to a report by the New York Times, Apple are not planning to produce a smaller iPhone as many have suggested, but they are looking at a budget model.

The reason for the former is that a smaller phone would, sources say, probably be no cheaper to manufacture than the full size phone while at the same time would be harder to use.  It could also force app developers to rewrite their apps for the handset.

However the source for the paper does say that it makes sense for the company to have several different form-factors at a single time.  This would make the company more competitive with Google and its Android operating system and it would help to head off any threat from Nokia, the world's largest phone manufacturer, when it begins to release Windows Phones later this year.

An Apple engineer said that such a phone could be made with cheaper components, essentially reusing older components from previous handsets and taking advantage of technology advancements over the last few years.  Such a device he says, would not be any smaller that the current iPhone.

Apple being Apple we'll not know what they have planned until they get up on stage and announce it, and we look forward to that.

In other plans, the company is also planning to make its MobileMe service free and more flexible.  Currently at $100 a year its failed to catch on with consumers, especially when rival services from Google and Microsoft are free.  The aim is to provide better functionality including wireless sync.  “The goal is that your photos and other media content will eventually just sync across all your Apple devices without people having to do anything" a source said.

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