Edunology - Saumya Aggarwal

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Last quarter Apple sold iPhones like banana in China, the figure touched 8 million. No doubt that it is the best smart phone available, still I think it is unsustainable going forward.

This exorbint sales helped Apple post record breaking profits in U.S. Analysts have praised the effort and seem too bullish for my liking. I have three main reasons why it seems tough:

A.) More than half of 30 million iPhones in China are unlocked and being used on unathorized China Mobile that limit the user experience to 2G only.

B.)  Apple is far from getting right product for China market. It is a pain to use iPhone for texting as Chinese input on iPhone is not user friendly. Multiple Chinese bloggers and community experts have expressed their concern. The only option is to jailbreak and install third party software to make iPhone work smoothly.

C.) The third seasons arises from first two. Since Chinese users have unlocked and jailbreak their phone, they can download App Store applications for free. Chinese apps are limited Siri does not work in China.

Apple iPhone comes with entire ecosystem. In China, it seems this ecosystem is broken. Local players provide much better solution to Chinese users at fraction of cost.

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According to 9to5Mac, "reliable sources" at Foxconn tell the blog that workers are gearing up to start production on the iPhone 5. At this point, however, there are several models floating around, so it remains to be seen what the final version will entail, but they all include a few similar features.

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Apple's latest iPhone 4S has finally entered the Indian market, almost a month after the device was launched in the U.S. Aircel and Airtel are offering the iPhone 4s, priced at more than four times the U.S.price of $199, it's well subsidised by carriers there. The iPhone 4S has not created the same buzz in India despit iPhone 4s seen as last device of Steve Jobs. Many of the Apple enthusiasts are disappointed over the pricing at a higher cost than other nations, including the U.K. and Singapore. Considering the initial market response, the iPhone 4S seems unlikely to excite the India buyers in the near future. However, is it just the steep pricing of the iPhone 4S that is going to keep the buyers at bay? Let's find out:

I - iPhone 4S pricing

iPhone 4S pricing, the 16GB variant, comes for Rs. 44,500, while the 32GB is available for Rs. 50,900. It was quite surprising to see Apple and the telecom operators Airtel and Aircel agreeing such steep pricing. India is certainly one of the biggest smartphone markets in the world. But expecting the Indian consumers, already grappling with the price rise, to shell out Rs. 45k for a smartphone is not practical enough. Moreover, the telecom operators Airtel and Aircel are not subsidising cost of the phone, unlike their western peers. However, the iPhone 4S may find buyers among affluent professionals in India who like possessing iconic brands and luxury items.

II - Known battery life issues

Apple had to release an updated iOS 5.0.1 version after several iPhone 4S users complained about its battery life. Apple says the iOS 5.0.1 update brings various other changes to the platform including bug fixes for FreeType and iCloud documents. However, many users are reportedly still grappling with the problem and report that the update does not actually fix the battery life issue.

III - It's just a minor upgrade

The new iPhone 4S does feature a faster ARM Cortex A9 dual-core 1GHz processor, an 8MP camera and 1080p HD video support. It also features the voice recognition-based personal assistant, Siri. Apart from these, rest of the specs including the design are quite similar to the iPhone 4. Moreover, the iPhone 4S comes with the same 1,420 mAh battery, carried forward from the iPhone 4. Also, Siri is limited outside the U.S and is likely to get full-functionality by only sometime in 2012.


Alternative top end devices

So, what alternatives do you have right now? Well, the iPhone 4 is not still a bad deal. Or, you can wait for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which is the first device to sport the latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. The device is speculated to arrive in India by earlier next year. Another option is the Samsung Galaxy S II, which comes with all the top-end smartphone features and is priced a good Rs. 15,000 less than the iPhone 4S. A number of Android smartphones, like the LG Optimus 2X, and the new super-slim Motorola Razr are also available at a relatively cheap price. Of course, these are just the top-end devices, if we decide to look for top-notch performance at affordable prices, the options open up even further - with devices like the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini and Xperia Arc, the Motorola Defy+, the LG Optimus Black, Samsung Omnia W and Galaxy SL all delivering the goods without breaking the bank.

If you are still adamant on buying the latest iPhone 4S, we suggest you get the unlocked version from abroad at a relatively lower price.

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With iPhone 4 already a hit, are you waiting for iPhone 5?

That could be your next iPhone -- or it could be a tear-shaped dream. It's a mock-up of what is said to be the iPhone 5, according to anonymous sources quoted by Joshua Topolsky. A continuation of the concepts laid out in our post-CES look at what's next for Apple, the design here is said to be thin, metal-backed, tapered, and sporting a 3.7-inch display with the same 960 x 640 resolution in the iPhone 4's retina display -- resulting in a slight drop from that phone's vaunted 326ppi density. The home button is quite obviously enlarged, possibly adding some thumbable gestures into the mix. Internals are said to include a "swipable" area, possibly meaning NFC, along with a Qualcomm Gobi chipset with support for CDMA and GSM, so this could be the one phone to rule all the carriers. Or, it might wind up only ever having domain over a single .PSD file. To us, well, it looks a little too thin to be packing all that and a bag of antennas as suggested and, with all the weight at the top, we can see this things flying out of hands left and right. But, we're certainly willing to be surprised. Place your bets in comments below.

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Apple has been exploring ways to broaden the appeal of the iPhone by making the popular device less expensive and allowing users to control it with voice commands.

Customers waited in line to buy the latest iPhone at the flagship Apple store in New York in June.

But contrary to published reports, Apple is not currently developing a smaller iPhone, according to people briefed on Apple’s plans who requested anonymity because the plans are confidential.

Apple’s engineers are currently focused on finishing the next version of the iPhone, which is likely to be similar in size to the current iPhone 4, said one of the people. The person said Apple was not planning to introduce a smaller iPhone any time soon. Analysts expect the new iPhone to be ready this summer.

Another person who is in direct contact with Apple also said that the company would not make a smaller iPhone at this time, in part because a smaller device would not necessarily be much cheaper to manufacture and because it would be more difficult to operate.

More important, a phone with a smaller screen would force many developers to rewrite their apps, which Apple wants to avoid, the person said.

Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, appeared to reinforce that last point recently when he praised the iPhone’s uniformity, contrasting it with phones based on Google’s Android software, which come in many formats.

“We think Android is very, very fragmented and getting more fragmented by the day,” Mr. Jobs told financial analysts in October. “We think this is a huge strength of our approach compared to Google’s.”

Another senior Apple executive said during a private meeting recently that it did not make sense for the company to make multiple iPhone models, noting that Apple would stick with its practice of dropping the price of older models when it introduced a new one.

The iPhone 3GS is now available for $49 with a two-year contract that helps subsidize the price of the device in the United States.

As part of its effort to find new customers for the iPhone, Apple plans to make it easier to operate the device through voice commands, removing an obstacle for people who do not like using a virtual keyboard, said another person with knowledge of Apple’s plans.

Apple is also considering changing internal components of the device to bring costs down. “Although the innards of the phone, including memory size or camera quality, could change to offer a less expensive model, the size of the device would not vary,” said the person, who has worked on multiple versions of the device.

Another person with knowledge of Apple’s plans said that the company was actively building a more versatile version of its MobileMe service, which allows users to store music, photos and files online and have them accessible on all their devices.

The current version of MobileMe, which costs $100 a year, has failed to catch on with consumers. Rivals like Google and others offer similar services free.

The new version of MobileMe is expected to be free and would allow users to synch their files without using a cable.

“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,” the person said. If more iPhone users stored files online, Apple could make cheaper devices with less storage. Flash storage is one of the iPhone’s most expensive components.

Apple has dominated the high end of the smartphone market, but the company is facing increasing competition from devices running Google’s Android, which collectively outsell the iPhone. Analysts said it would make sense for Apple to introduce a cheaper iPhone, especially in overseas markets where carriers do not subsidize handsets. Unsubsidized handsets are often called “prepaid.”

“If they are going to be a player in the global market they have to have a prepaid option,” said Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray. But Mr. Munster said that to be successful, a prepaid iPhone would have to be able to run the more than 300,000 apps available in the App Store.

A. M. Sacconaghi Jr., an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, said that a low-priced iPhone could help Apple expand its unit sales of the device sixfold.

In recent days, some published reports, citing anonymous sources, said that Apple was building a smaller iPhone. One report gave the code name of the project as N97. Several people with knowledge of Apple’s plans said that N97 was the code name for the Verizon iPhone 4, which was introduced this month.

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Apple new patent application describes methods that may enable the iPhone and iPad to "sense" the user, detecting voice prints, faces, activity patterns and even heartbeats. If unauthorized use is detected, many security measures could be activated.

If the iOS device detects that the user is not authorized, it can start taking photos and sending them to an email account, along with GPS coordinates, keystroke logs, phone calls, and other activity. The owner would also be able to save any data remotely, and wipe out the device after that.

The patent application seems like a supercharged version of the Find My iPhone feature now available in MobileMe, coupled with new hardware and software features. While these patents may never get their way into real products, it makes sense for Apple to increase the security, especially for their increasing number of corporate clients. [Apple Insider via Ars]

Courtesy: Gizmodo