Apple Not Making a Smaller iPhone Nano, But a Cheaper One: New York Times

The New York Times is reporting that Apple does not have plans for a smaller iPhone “anytime soon”, and that engineers are busy finishing the next iPhone 5, which should be ready by this summer.

There’s more to this. According to the NYT’s second source:

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.

Yureka. I’ve been saying all along that changing the resolution of the iPhone would make it difficult for developers. So, if these words are true, the next iPhone will have the same screen–but be physically smaller (what the WSJ reported).

Voice Commands Resurface; Memory/Camera Downgrades for Cost Savings?

The rumour of voice commands are back (here’s a full list of 3GS voice commands). This time around, voice commands will make it easier to operate the next iPhone for people who do not like using virtual keyboards. Wow. Is Apple taking Voice navigation to the next level? Will we see full control of iOS via the power of our voices?

Other tidbits include revamping internals to make a cheaper cost for the iPhone, such as decreasing memory size and camera quality. MobileMe will become free and allow users to sync content without a cable. The rationale?

“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.

Analyst Gene Munster from Piper Jaffray says that Apple must introduce a pre-paid iPhone if they want to “be a player in the global market”. This is a tough one to agree with. Apple is known for dominating the high-end niche with all of their products. Could the threat of Android, Nokiasoft, and webOS change Apple’s plans, to compete?

This was one of the juiciest iPhone rumour articles from the New York Times. Check it out here.

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