Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The iPhone 5 News Blog News Feed

The iPhone 5 News Blog News Feed

While iPhone 4 Sales Remain Brisk, the iPhone 5 Is Just a Concept

Posted: 11 May 2011 03:00 AM PDT


The rumor mill has distributed a few photos of purported components and prototypes for the fabled iPhone 5, none of which have been authenticated. For all intents and purposes, the iPhone 5 remains little more than a concept in lieu of the iPhone 4′s success.

With over 48 million iPhone 4s sold to date, Apple is proving month after month that its sole smartphone design can take on a whole field of Android smartphones and widen their slice of the total market. Instead of a singular iPhone 4 release, we’ve had three of them, each with a bluster and fanfare that sent the tech community aflame with excitement. As a result, the iPhone 4 sales roll in, and they’ve kept rolling in since the Summer of 2010.

Even with the iPhone 4 stumbling out of the gate with Antennagate, it has become the most mainstream Apple smartphone to date, by a longshot.

With this in mind, why it is any surprise that the iPhone 5 remains in mothballs?

For as much as most of us have settled on the prospect that the iPhone 5 will be released at the end of the Summer or early Fall, you can argue that the next iteration of the iPhone remains nothing more than a concept at present. In spite of a few reports here and there of components manufacturers gearing up a bit, as well as a few uncorroborated,  leaked photos of parts, there is nothing to suggest that Apple has begun to even implement the iPhone 5 into production or pre-production.

Right now, Apple’s manufacturers are pumping out white iPhone 4 models instead!

This isn’t to say that there is no design for the next iPhone — to be sure, somewhere in the annals of Cupertino, a design for the iPhone 5 exists (as does one for the iPhone 6 as well, I’m sure). But to what extent is the iPhone 5′s design complete? Has Apple and Steve Jobs signed off on what the iPhone 5 will feature? Are there still a half-dozen different prototypes floating around Apple HQ?

It’s very possible.

After all, why would Apple feel rushed to launch the iPhone 5, when the iPhone 4 is still gaining steam? It has been documented that, even though newer Droid phones are beginning to eclipse iPhone 4 technology, simply changing the color of the current iPhone, combined with the unquenchable zeal that surrounds the iPhone, Apple has figured out a winning strategy for extending the sales lifecycle of the iPhone well past six or so months.

Who would have ever believed that brisk iPhone 4 sales could make a late-released iPhone 5 a strategic advantage for Apple, what with Google nipping at their heels with Android? And yet, that is exactly what is happening.

How the iPhone 4 is beating all of those Droids:

If you were to look at the complete pie chart for smartphone sales in 2010, Apple’s slice of pie may not seem all that impressive: Apple sold 48 million iPhones in 2010 for a market share of only 3.5%. Companies like Nokia and Samsung, for example, sold 450 million and 280 million phones last year, respectively, dwarfing what we iPhone disciples generally consider to be the greatest sales year for the iPhone ever.

And yet, in spite of the small numbers, the iPhone 4 is Apple’s best-selling iPhone today by far. and while the company’s only smartphone model accounts for just 3.5% percent of phones sold, it also accounts for the lion’s share the smartphone buzz out there.

It is true that Android has managed to quickly close the gap with the iPhone, and Google has done it not by manufacturing and designing one device to rival the iPhone, but rather by empowering a wide range of different phone manufacturers to use their platform. In this way, you could argue that the iPhone 4 has been totally outnumbered — and all those numbers of Droids make it look like Apple is losing the smartphone wars.

But in fact, that isn’t the case.

According to a report by  Beatweek, while  the Droid-friendly HTC has boasted huge sales, two other key Android producers, Samsung and Motorola, have experienced palpable declines in sales. When you drill down into the numbers, you begin to understand why: according to Beatweek, HTC “specializes in Android phones for Sprint and T-Mobile, two carriers in which the iPhone has yet to begin competing.” Conversely, “the Verizon iPhone 4 is thought to be taking business most directly away from the Verizon Droid, which is manufactured by Motorola.”

As a result, wherever the iPhone 4 is competing against Android — namely on Verizon and AT&T — the iPhone 4 is winning; Android is seeing its sales surge based on the iPhone 4 being left off the shelves at both Sprint and, for the time being T-Mobile. (Which is why I think there is an outside chance that Sprint could surprise us by getting the iPhone 5.)

No Rush For The iPhone 5

When you think about it, Apple’s reasoning behind releasing new iPhone models is only based in part on getting current iPhone users to upgrade. According to Fortune Tech, 77% of iPhone 4 sales were upgrades — a percentage that Apple would most definitely like to improve on. The more important strategy is to win over non-iPhone users so that they can increase their market share. After all, if all 48 million iPhone 4 users bought the iPhone 5, but the company didn’t pick up any new users, they would fail to increase their market share.

Since the iPhone 4 is still drawing in new iPhone users, the company has little need to refresh the product line with the iPhone 5.

This isn’t to say that the iPhone 5 is nowhere in sight, but it is still a long way off — and too long of a wait for most of us.