A new week brings more Apple iPhone 2009 rumors. This has to be one of the most in demand products that Apple has going for it. The iPhone is wildly popular, despite being dethroned in sales by the Blackberry the last quarter.
That may sound like a bad thing to some fans of Apple and mobile phones, but when you stop to consider what it took the Blackberry to dethrone the iPhone, Apple's accomplishments shine. Consider that the Blackberry has multiple models on multiple carriers while the iPhone is currently only selling one model, the iPhone 3G, on one carrier. Apple has to know that the key to truly dominating the smartphone market is multiple products on multiple networks. That is surely one thing that we will be seeing.
Apple has been rather quiet on the subject of the iPhone for other carriers. Apple says that it is happy with the exclusive deal it has with AT&T, which is set to expire in 2010. Many rumors have Apple and Verizon in talks to bring an iPhone to the Verizon network in 2010. That is also the time frame when Verizon is set to launch its LTE network, which also happens to be the 4G technology that AT&T is banking on meaning one device would work on both networks.
I think if we do see Apple and AT&T sign a new exclusive contract, the contract terms may change. I think what we will see is a fully featured device with all the bells and whistles selling on the AT&T network while a cheaper, stripped down version of the new LTE iPhone sells on the Verizon network. The days of exclusivity for the iPhone have to end at some point, and the advent of LTE networks will likely be the point where it ends. Only Sprint is banking on WiMAX the other major U.S. providers of mobile service are all banking on LTE making it easy to port the iPhone to multiple networks.
Apple has been catching heat for some of its policies in the App store for applications. The latest uproar came after Apple denied an application from the band Nine Inch Nails because the song has explicit language. One of the latest rumors has Apple adding parental controls to the new iPhone to allow parents to block explicit content while allowing other users access to the apps. This makes a lot of sense and I fully expect to see this feature added to any future iPhone and most likely offered in a firmware update for existing devices as well.
We already knew that the next iPhone would be improving the quality of the camera and adding video recording capability. According to a rumor that started with BusinessWeek the video recording capabilities of the iPhone may extend beyond simply being capable of recording video. BusinessWeek reports that the new iPhone will actually be every bit as good as the current crop of small HD camcorders on the market like the Flip HD.
Apple had better be doing more than simply adding megapixels to make this true. What the iPhone needs is better optics and better low light performance. Throwing megapixels at the job just won’t do the trick. If the new iPhone is a quality camcorder, we will likely see a higher storage capacity version as well. I just do not see Apple adding the capability to expand memory via microSD cards so we will probably get a 32GB version at least and see 8GB versions disappear
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