“Apple Inc. will introduce a version of the iPhone next year that can download from the Internet at a faster rate, AT&T Inc. Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson said,” Crayton Harrison reports for Bloomberg.
“The device will operate on third-generation wireless networks, Stephenson said today at a meeting of the Churchill Club in Santa Clara, California. San Antonio-based AT&T is the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the U.S.,” Harrison reports.
“‘You’ll have it next year,’ Stephenson said in response to a question about when the 3G iPhone would debut. He said he didn’t know how much more the new version will cost than the existing model, which sells for $399. Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs ‘will dictate what the price of the phone is,’ he said,” Harrison reports.
Harrison reports, “The prospect of a new handset may make some shoppers put off buying an iPhone this year, Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray & Co. in Minneapolis, said in an e-mail. The number of shoppers who delay a purchase won’t be ‘enough to make a difference,’ he said.”
Full article here.
Is Stephenson trying to freeze sales or is he just stupid? As we’ve often explained (as iPhone users already know), they could cut the speed of EDGE in half today and you’d still have to pry our iPhones out of our cold, dead hands. And, as everyone knows, if you keep waiting for the next product update, you’ll never own anything.
Anyway, this is being treated as some sort of “news” by Bloomberg, but Apple CEO Steve Jobs has already said as much and more precisely, too:
“3G chipsets… are real power hogs. Most phones now have battery lives of 2 to 3 hours and that’s due to these very power-hungry 3G chipsets… [iPhone] has 8 hours of talktime life. That’s really important when you start to use the Internet and want to use the phone to listen to music. We’ve got to see the battery lives for 3G get back up into the 5+ hour range. Hopefully we’ll see that late next year.” – Apple CEO Steve Jobs introducing iPhone to the UK, September 18, 2007. [bold emphasis added by MacDailyNews]
We’ve had our iPhones since June, purchased at the $599 price (we did cash in our $100 rebates) and we’d buy it again today at $599 rather than wait another year. The device is that good and the EDGE “issue” is that overblown.