It would appear that these rumours of Apple launching a "cheaper" and "more affordable" iPhone are going to come true eventually; take a look at this report that suggests we could be seeing a newer version of the worlds most popular smart phone "in a matter of weeks".

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/science...ory-weeks.html

Is this a wise move by Apple? Was this slightly unexpected as Apple appeared to always aim for premium prices when it came to the iPhone product line? Still, nothing has been confirmed by the company, but it looks like we could be well on our way of possibly seeing 2 new iPhones launching this year as rumours previously suggested. Exciting stuff!

I think it's good news for customers really. I'm still on an iPhone 3G and waiting for the new phones to upgrade. I might just opt for the cheaper iPhone 4.

I agree.

It would appear that most people either own an iPhone or a Blackberry these days, and with the cheaper option that is presumably going to become available, it will mean that everyone will be able to afford a good quality smart phone. It will be similar to when Apple launched the iPod shuffle I guess.

Unless there is a major price drop, which has also been rumoured, this is little different to what Apple have done the last few years

2008 - 8GB and 16GB iPhone 3G launched
2009 - 16GB and 32GB iPhone 3GS launched. 8GB iPhone 3G retained as budget model
2010 - 16GB and 32GB iPhone 4 launched. New 8GB iPhone 3GS brought in as budget model

If i was a cynic i would say that reminded me of someone

Anyway, yes it will be interesting. Exciting, no.

It was always going to happen. Cheaper and much more advance phones are why apples marketshare is struggling.

Take the Galaxy S2 and the iphone 4. Both similarly priced yet the S2 kicks the iphone 4's arse in every single respect.

I think instead of releasing another cheaper phone, they should just drop the iphone 4 to a price it should be at anyway. About £250-£300.

Given that the S2 came out nearly a year after the iPhone 4 I think it's obvious that it would "kick the iPhone 4's arse in every respect", it would be rather lame if it didn't.

Cheaper phones are probably making the biggest difference. Apple has consistently placed itself at the top end of the phone market. Android has gained market share very rapidly because it has phones from various manufacturers at all different price points. Until now, Apple hasn't been willing to sacrifice margin and profit for market share.


This isn't the primary reason for Android having such a big market share though. The SG2, like the iPhone, is beyond what many people are able or willing to pay for a phone. The difference is, there are plenty of alternative Android handsets. As for the performance, the Galaxy 2 is Samsung's brand new, flagship phone. I would fully expect it to perform better than an iPhone launched more than a year ago.


The iPhone 4 will come down in price when the new model comes out. Before that, why would they drop the price? If you'd released a product and more than a year later, it continued to sell in huge numbers at the same price point, why would you lower it and reduce your margins and profit? The fact is, people are willing to pay a premium for Apple products.

Cheaper and Apple don't work in the same sentence.

I don't think Apple could possibly have the correct handle on this. Not only do they simply have to aim at the cheaper end, but they have to realize why the majority of the cheaper end buyers are doing so. Being a former Desire HD and 3GS owner, I wouldn't even think of giving up my current, very cheap San Francisco for any iPhone unless it was to sell it and buy a different Android.

I may be in the niche overall, but if this particular cheaper "niche" end is what they are trying to capture by releasing a cheaper iPhone then they are surely going to have to revise their approach. Meaning; open their eyes and realise that many of us do want a choice in what we are doing and don't want to feel restricted or robbed of potential or performance. A complete contradiction of what they've done up to this point when it comes to the cheaper end.

Wonder what this will do for apple http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14659127

Except, they kind of do-for years they've run iPod classics next to Nano, Touch and shuffle versions-doing the same basic job, with differing capacities and extra features. No reason why they shouldn't do the same with iPhone.

I'm not an Apple hater-there are reasons why they have more money than Uncle Sam in the bank-but when the original iPhone was launched, it was unique. Nobody else offered the mix of music-player,web browser,decent camera,email,phone and-crucially-apps.In the past couple of years, Android have kicked butt everywhere, and people have loved it. That's why a Wildfire S or Samsung Ace outstrips an iPhone 3gs,for a third of the price, and the Galaxy SII has been outselling the iPhone 4 for 4 months on the UK. These products-and many others-came about by manufacturers responding to Apple's challenge. Apple will now respond by improving choice and value. The result? More customer choice and value. And if Apple's new products hit well, the others will respond to the challenge. It almost looks as if capitalism works....

Just seen this myself. It was a bit of a shock but not completely unexpected. I reckon there will be a temporary dip in share price but it'll recover pretty quickly.

Excellent post, totally fair and balanced. If they now dropped the spurious patent lawsuits.......

To an extent yes but I'm also curious as to what happens to the masses of money removed from the economy.

Money makes the world go round but $90 billion now stops at Apple.
Maybe they are secretly the biggest banker in the world?

At the end of the day it's just a phone. There is nothing exclusive about an iPhone any more. I don't think it's the must have phone it used to be. All it is now is a good phone in a market full of good phones. The choices are there for people with different requirements now and people will not automatically be gagging for the iPhone whatever the price.

The iPhone was so great partly because Windows Mobile was so incredibly neglected.
It has to be why Opera mobile became the number one browser.
IE on WM was an ultra crude dismal experience.

The much cheaper phone itself has been a safe prediction for a long time. They don't even need to lower the spec with costs falling all the time.
And with long term money being in ads/search engines plus apps they might all eventually use the kindle low cost sales model.

I didn't expect Steve to leave from Apple... even though he's not really leaving he's just taking a back seat in the company for now from what I gather.

I suspect it will be business as usual. I suspect whatever Apple planned with regards to the "new" iPhone(s) launching "in a matter of weeks" will still go ahead.

They key point being that the iPhone 4 remains more expensive than more advanced new phones, despite being well over a year old. iPhone 4 is free from £42 on o2, the Galaxy S II is free from £34. These rumours about a budget iPhone will, as somebody already pointed out, merely be a reduced memory version of the iPhone 4 which, if history repeats itself, will be free on £35 a month contracts.

Hardly budget when it's still a good £10-15 a month more expensive than other budget smartphones and still about £5 ahead of direct competition like the Desire S.

There still seem to be a bunch of people out there that are willing to pay those prices, and that's why Apple's making so much money. Ordinary people don't care about the technical specs of a phone. They care that it'll do what they want in the way that they want and give them a great experience in the process. Specs are for us geeks on here.

The new phone is quite likely iPod branded.

So I'm punting on a £200 iPod phone.
If you consider that the iPod already uses a lower cost screen its a very good fit to arrest the sales decline here.

I'll say £350 and the only difference will be a slightly slower CPU, lower RAM, say 8gb and a less quality screen.

Yeah, I'm guessing that they're going to try and take some trade back from the Android phone market which has grown and grown because of the superior nature of the OS and technology.

I think there will come a point where Apple will have to accept that people will no longer accept their overpriced products when they can get something twice as good for half the price.

I suspect this is not going be so much a case of a "cheap" iPhone but one that is a bit less hideously expensive. I assume that the reason they are doing this is because the iPhone is facing plenty of mid-range competition now from Android mobiles made by the likes of HTC, LG, Samsung, etc.

Its already out, its called the 3GS. Be interesting to see how this plays out.

I was about to buy the iphone 4 (white) from O2 today, but the sales rep told me that it's dropping to £37 tomorrow, rather than the £42 it is today. Do you think it will drop much more over the next few months with the release of the iphone 5 or this is about as low as it will go. I really would love one, but it still seems very expensive.