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‘Why Apple Won’t Sell a $100 iPhone, a Netbook or a Tablet’: Is Wired News writer correct?
December 10, 2008 | 8:39 am
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By David Rothman
Will a $100 iPhone materialize from Apple for cash-strapped WalMart shoppers?
Not if you go by Charles Sorrel in Wired News. He’s also down on rumors about Apple tablets and netbooks being on the way.
‘Doesn’t do cheap’
“What every one of these analysts fails to understand is the Apple business model,” Sorrell says in shooting down the $100 iPhone rumor. “The company just doesn’t do cheap.”
Oh, I don’t know, Charles. Just look at the low-end Nanos. Sooner or later we’ll get the $100 phones, ideally with e-book capabilities, as the cost of the tech goes down. Remember, too, that cellular subscription fees pay much or most of the cost of the phones. Perhaps customers could get the $100 phones if they agreed to a longer lock-in or yielded on other variables.
Sob, no tablet, either?
On the tablet—or lack of one—Sorrell writes that “we have the feeling that after an hour or so of playing, we’d want to go outside—and the oversized iPod Touch wouldn’t fit in our pocket…The other problem would be price…What would you pay? $800? $1,000?”
…And no netbook soon?
On the Mac Netbook rumor: “One day, I’m sure, we’ll see a tiny MacBook with a proper keyboard and a trackpad you can actually use. But it will be awhile, and it will probably cost more than the competition. In the meantime, you can hack your own Mac netbook using an MSI Wind and a copy of OS X.”
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Comments:
I hate to say “never” in regards to Apple (I was one of those, “Apple will never go to Intel people…”), but I’m not that convinced of the $100 iPhone, either.
Why? Because Apple can’t afford to do it.
From what I’ve read, the theory is that Apple will use Wal-Mart to sell a $100 iPhone 3G with 4GB of memory. Now the obvious question is, would people be happy with an iPhone 3G with 4GB of memory?
Remember, Apple is more interested in having happy customers then having lots of customers. So I buy my iPhone 3G and the first thing I complain about is that I don’t have enough room for all these great TV shows and movies that I bought!
Garbage expands to fill the space alotted, granted, but I have a feeling that 4GB is just going to be too small, by the time I pick up all the games and movies that I want. Will I blame myself? “Oops. I guess I should have bought an 8GB or 16GB?” Not in America! “Damn that Apple for making something too underpowered for all my stuff! I’ll never buy anything from them again!”
The Apple rumor mill is once again running overtime on the topic of netbooks. If you believe the reports, Steve Jobs is himself leading the charge. My take: Whatever Apple does, it won