iPhone Nano?
Rumours are abound that Apple might be working on a smaller version of the hugely successful iPhone. While most mock-ups circling around the internet are just of a normal iPhone shrunk down, I think that if the rumour has any legs at all, then it would make more sense for it to look more like the iPod Nano.
Courtesy of Apple
Mobile radio chips are so small now they can fit in a watch, and with Apple patenting technology that would remove the need for a physical SIM card, then the hardware needed to make a phone call is only going to get smaller.
There would be no point replicating the whole iPhone experience in a size smaller than the current form. In fact there are even hints that the next iPhone will feature a larger four inch screen. However, a basic phone could easily be operated using the iPod Nano’s tiny screen, especially if contacts were managed via iTunes or a MobileMe sync.
I can imagine Apple demoing such a device by not having phone numbers for contacts at all, instead just photographs. Imagine scrolling through your phone book contacts just like you do when scrolling through album covers. Tap on a photo of your friend to initiate a call. Perhaps the iPhone Nano would only operate with headphones. This would be aimed squarely as basic device – an iPod that can make calls, I don’t envisage an App Store ecosystem for such a device.
Update: The New York Time are now reporting that sources close to Apple are saying the company will not be releasing a smaller iPhone any time soon. Their information is from an unnamed source who claims to have been briefed on Apple’s future iPhone plans.
The report goes on to say that making a smaller iPhone would be problematic for developers and would fragment the platform in a similar way to the myriad of devices and sizes for Android phones. Developers would be forced to re-write their applications for new screen sizes and it would be difficult for the user to operate.
Steve Jobs has criticised Google’s Android for this; “We think Android is very, very fragmented and getting more fragmented by the day,” Mr. Jobs told financial analysts in October. “We think this is a huge strength of our approach compared to Google’s.”
This would be the case if you were to make a smaller iPhone with a full iOS operating system that could run today’s apps, but I believe an iPhone nano would be a completely new category and would only make calls. This would fit in with Apple’s recent track-record. They said they would never enter the Net Book market, claiming the devices just weren’t good enough. Instead they created a whole new device when they launched the iPad.
