by Jared Levy on June 7th, 2010
Expectations are always high for new Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) products and with Steve Jobs being the showman and master of spin that he is, he can generally deliver. Blogs are lit up with anticipation ahead of today’s Worldwide Developers Conference and Jobs’ keynote speech is expected to contain news of a new product (Note: I am writing this at 7:30 am CT).
There have been many sites that have leaked photos and specifics of the closely-guarded product. Of course there was the notorious beer-garden incident in California, which offered a “free look” into the phone, thanks to Gray Powell, an engineer from Apple who left the phone at Gourmet Haus Staudt (which I hear has a great selection of German beers, by the way). That fourth-generation phone ended up in the hands of the website Gizmodo for the sum of $5,000 but was later returned to Apple.
According to Gizmodo, the new iPhone is thinner than the 3GS and previous iPhones, containing smaller internal components and a 16% larger battery inside the new metal frame; this could mean that poor battery life will be improved. There is now a front-facing camera, which should help with many apps and with video chat, and there is also a larger and better-quality camera with an LED flash on the back, a higher-resolution display, and a second microphone for noise cancellation.
There is also reportedly a new back cover, which is speculated to be glass or ceramic, possibly to address the scratching issues that iPhone owners face every time they sit their naked iPhone on just about any surface other than one coated with cosmoline. It is also reported that there will also now be a MicroSIM slot in the phone, which is the same device used in the iPad.
Apple takes a different approach with the iPhone and with all of its products for that matter. Instead of having dozens and sometimes hundreds of phone models like their competitors, Apple tends to have one product – with one recognizable name and brand – and improve on that one brand, using the ‘generational’ theme. This is similar to the automotive industry.
I always thought this was Nokia’s (NYSE: NOK) Achilles heel; they have produced literally hundreds of different models over the years and I can’t tell you one model name or number, even though I have owned several. That is not to say that their products are inferior, it’s simply that by the time you figure out one phone’s key features and want to tell your friends, there are 10 new models being produced. With the iPhone, everyone talks about what it can do, Apple highlights its features through simple but cute commercials, and you can have confidence that the product will at least deliver certain expectations.