Why Apple Could be Releasing an iPhone Nano this Fall

The idea of an iPhone nano has been debated since the device’s inception 4 years ago. Apple’s conquest of the mp3 player market with multiple iPod models has had many folks wondering if Apple was going to do the same thing with their smartphone line.

While most people scoff at the idea of Apple producing a cheap version of the popular iPhone, Horace Dediu of asymco seems to think otherwise. Apparently, Apple has plenty of reasons to manufacture an iPhone “nano.”

Nearly 5 billion of reasons. Based on data published by the Deutsche Bank and the ITU, Dediu posted an article outlining several reasons why Apple is likely to release an iPhone nano soon. The largest factor seems to be the pre-paid market they are missing out on.

“Roughly 1.5 billion are post-paid and 3.7 billion are pre-paid. That means that nearly 70% of the world is not being addressed by the iPhone as it currently stands. Put another way, a shift in positioning might result in a 250% increase in addressable market.”

Apple is expected to eventually penetrate the remaining post-paid audiences, but what about pre-paid customers? Since pre-paid plans are generally non-contract, any serious attempt by Apple to invade that market would warrant a significantly less expensive iPhone model.

Let’s not forget the comments made by Apple’s COO earlier this year. In an interview with analyst Toni Sacconaghi, Tim Cook stated that Apple had “clever things” planned for the prepaid market. He also added that Apple didn’t want the iPhone to “just be for the rich.”

Then there is the maturity factor. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber said, “Examine the history of the iPod to see how this will play out.” Well the original iPod launched in 2001, and 4 years later Apple added the Shuffle and Nano models to its line of mp3 players.

Didn’t the iPhone launch in ’07? Apple’s been building iPhones for 4 years, and have a tremendous ecosystem in place with iOS. Add in iOS 5′s new no-need-for-a-computer design, and a cheaper iPhone for the pre-paid market starts to make sense.

We just covered a rumor yesterday that suggested that Apple would be releasing 2 iPhone models this fall, one of which is expected to be dramatically cheaper than previous models. I’m starting to think that this case could hold water.

Thoughts?

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A Sleeping OS X Lion Stirs

The iPad 2 nears! An iPad 3 is on the horizon! iPhone 5 is coming! Maybe an iPhone nano! New MacBook Pros! New iMacs! Maybe even an Apple television! Of all the Apple rumors out there right now, there’s a odd lack of talk about something we know is coming — and soon: OS X Lion.
Back in October of last year, Apple gave an official sneak peek of Lion and stated that it would launch in “summer 2011″. The first official day of summer is exactly 4 months away. And yet, Apple has been largely silent about the new OS since that preview four months ago. We now have the Mac App Store which we know will be a key ingredient, and likely points to some other things about the OS as well. But there has been no official update out of Apple about Lion. So where does it stand?
Well, first of all, from what we’re hearing, Apple is now using it internally. That they’re testing it shouldn’t be surprising, but it’s apparently being widely used internally. Recent statistics seem to confirm this. Looking over the TechCrunch logs, it seems that OS X 10.7 (Lion) has been seeing a surge of usage in recent weeks. After peaking in late August/early September, stats fell off a bit. But now they’re soaring again, indicating that full-scale internal testing is underway.
And while we already know some of the new features thanks to Apple’s preview, there are still a few surprises, apparently. One of these is a much-anticipated UI overhaul. But that means that developers are going to need to be ready when it rolls out. And along those lines, we’re hearing that a developer beta should begin soon. There’s no firm timetable for this yet, but again, we’re only 4 months away from the summer. Apple has also been busy prepping the lastest version of OS X Snow Leopard, 10.6.7. And developers have been receiving builds of it for weeks now. But that development cycle will remain separate from the OS X 10.7 track. Meanwhile, new MacBook Pro updates are slated for this Thursday, and that may include hardware slightly modified to run the new OS X better. These are likely to be the last hardware updates before OS X Lion hits. Bigger trackpads for better multi-touch support? A dedicated SSD element for the OS? We’ll see. All we know for sure is that the sleeping Lion is stirring, and about to get a lot louder so it can roar this summer.


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