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iPhone for the Proletariat?

Friday, May 16, 2008

Considering the models we *might* have seen in photos recently, the news of massive roll-outs across europe and asia…especially India…I speculating the new iPhone is actually a red herring.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the where Apple would want to go next. I’m guessing that in three weeks, at WWDC, Apple’s big surprise won’t be the new iPhone.

Everyone’s been picking over the new 2.0 features - 3G, GPS, blah blah blah… Believe me, I want one too. I have a first-gen iPhone and it’s easily the best phone I’ve ever owned, but I think that the world’s been looking too high. Sure - the OS can support all these options and more, and I’m sure those who can afford to buy a $400-500 phone and supporting data plan will rush out and buy it on the first day.

But I’ve been living in Europe now for nearly 9 years and living with an à la carte telephone system. Most people buy a Pre-Pay - a locked subsidized mobile from a telco and then buy mobile credits to top-up their phones when they need to. And when I say “most people”, I generally mean teens to 20s, even some 30-ish slackers. If you’ve got what the dutch call an “abonnement”, which is a monthly phone plan usually taken in 1 or 2 year cycles, then the odds are you can choose a better phone. You’re also likely being reimbursed partially by your employer. While these all-in plans are the ones people align with the iPhone, the truth is that the great majority of ALL phone are those contract-free, pre-paid Nokias and SonyEricssons you need to always top-up. Considering the data costs of an iPhone, it’s no wonder it’s always used under a contracted plan; you’d go broke fast with a top-up scheme.

But then why—really, WHY—is India getting the iPhone under several different telcos and getting it distributed through 250,000 vendors? That’s ten times what anyones best-guess would have produced!

My best guess is that we’ll see not one but two new iPhone’s rolled out - the hot new GPS & 3G iPhone and a lower-cost iPhone in colored plastic, functionally identical to the existing model, for the Pre-Pay crowd. It makes sense - Apple and their partners are daily dropping hints on new iPhone contract roll-outs across the world, but in staggering numbers. A cost-reduced, reengineered 2.0 iPhone in an ABS plastic shell - white or black - created for the masses like the MacBook, with all the basic features you’d expect in an iPhone. Then for the folks who have to always have best-in-class, similar to what we have now in weighty aluminum and glass like the generations of Powerbooks and MacBook Pros, denoting that you want the best there is at the time. It has the added benefit of not embarrassing those of us with the current version too.

For the 3G big-boy, would Apple would use their patent for an integrated lcd screen and compound lens? Sharp announced that a similar screen technology should be ready for this spring, but then merging those patents are possibly a wet dream. Next gen.

I think the “one more thing” moment will be an iPhone for the Proletariat. Fingers-crossed.