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The biggest Apple product launch of the year is taking place in the smallest of locations. The iPhone 5 unveiling, which will come complete with the release date for the device which consumers have been asking about for months, is set to be a small-capacity affair on Apple’s own Cupertino campus, says Apple Insider. As Mashable points outs, while various Apple products (including the original iPod in 2001) have been launched at Apple headquarters over the years, this will mark the first instance in which Apple has done so with an iPhone. Pessimists will point to this as a sign that there is no iPhone 5 in 2011 and Apple is hosting a low-key event because it’s set to deliver the bad news that only an iPhone 4S will be available this year, with the 5 not surfacing until 2012. But the more basic explanation is that, upon having shifted the iPhone 5 launch back significantly in the calendar, Apple now finally has the 5 ready to go and isn’t willing to wait until one of its larger venues such as Moscone West or Yerba Buena is available. As has been pointed out, the expected timeframe for the iPhone 5 launch, on October 4th or 5th, places an Oracle conference taking up all three Moscone halls at that same time. Despite the naysayers, a growing mountain of evidence points to it being an iPhone 5, and not merely an iPhone 4S being unveiled in Cupertino next month…

Apple has known since at least April that the iPhone 5 would not see a summer release date, and tacitly admitted as much when it launched the white iPhone 4 at the end of April; if the iPhone 5 had been set for summer unveiling, Apple wouldn’t have bothered tinkering with the iPhone 4 lineup so late in the game. And yet Verizon has confirmed that at the time the Verizon iPhone 4 launched in March, it was under the impression that the iPhone 5 would in fact be a summer product. That narrows down the timeframe for when Apple realized the iPhone 5 would be pushed to the fall, and paints it clearly as having been a move made out of some kind of technical necessity and not part of a grand plan. Early component and manufacturing issues, or delays in the development of the iOS 5 operating system, are the most likely components. Either way, it’s clear that A) the iPhone 5 wasn’t originally supposed to be pushed back, and B) Apple has known for awhile that it would have to do so. In other words, if Apple were going to use the iPhone 4S as a mere substitute while pushing the iPhone 5 back to 2012, the 4S would already have come to market by now. Manufacturing the 4S, which is based on the existing iPhone 4, is trivial. The reason Apple waited this late in the calendar year to deliver the new iPhone is that it’s been buying the extra time it needed to finish the iPhone 5 (and iOS 5). In other words, if the iPhone 5 weren’t coming til next year, the iPhone 4S would already have been in your hands a month or two ago. But there’s other evidence pointing to an iPhone 5 release date in 2011, going beyond mere deductive logic…

Longtime Apple board member Al Gore, speaking this week at a conference on an unrelated manner, opted to plug “the new iPhones” coming next month. Plural, mind you. Gore was laying the groundwork for multiple new iPhone models coming to market in 2011. This was likely a planted comment aimed at assuring those growing restless that, yes, the new iPhone is indeed coming this year. And by saying “iPhones” instead of merely “iPhone” in the singular, Gore offered a de facto confirmation that an iPhone 5 and an iPhone 4S are on their way in October. Why Gore, and why now? Because he was the Apple representative who just happened to giving a speech this week, and the one who was in the easiest position to plant the remark.

So why an iPhone 4S at all? In the past Apple has kept the previous iPhone model around in the bargain bin once the new one arrives. That would be the existing iPhone 4 in this case. But the two current iPhone 4 models for AT&T and Verizon can only talk to one carrier each, and rather than add a third for Sprint’s network or force Sprint customers to go without a bargain option, a unified iPhone 4S allows a single low-price model to replace them all and work on all carriers. It also allows Apple to offer a new-ish iPhone on the low end rather than trying to sell the iPhone 4 (now fifteen months old) to customers who can’t afford the iPhone 5. And it puts the iPhone 4 antenna controversy to bed once and for all. But the preponderance of the evidence says that when Apple gathers the press next month for the iPhone unveiling, the small Cupertino room housing the event won’t be because Apple’s announcements are small. Rather it’ll be because, in Apple’s sudden haste to get the iPhone 5 unveiled and set up its release date now that the product is finally ready to go, it’s the largest room it could get its hands on. After all, the small number of journalists in the room won’t prevent the iPhone 5 from becoming the biggest consumer tech story of late 2011.

Article source: www.beatweek.com

Tim Cook has a greater challenge with the iPhone 5 than merely getting the tardy smartphone out the door on a release date which arrives before users and investors begin to grumble more loudly than they are now. The new Apple CEO must deal with the likes of carriers like Verizon and AT&T, companies which don’t share Apple’s vision for creating ideal product experiences. From the start of Apple’s iPhone foray in 2007, Jobs has been in battle with carriers all along: AT&T builds the minimum number of towers it thinks it needs to keep its customers from actually jumping ship to another carrier, as opposed to merely being disappointed enough that they keep threatening to. The carrier stood in the way of Apple’s efforts to deliver products like tethering and MMS to customers. And even as Apple has expanded the iPhone to Verizon, there’s now the contentious issue of the latest iPhone carrier wanting to limit user data plans so it can hit users with overage charges as a profit strategy, while Apple simply wants customers to use products like the iPhone to their fullest. Tim Cook, you’re up to bat.

The iPhone 5 release date will be merely the first test which Cook faces in this regard, but it’ll be significant in the carriers may smell blood in the water in terms of pushback against Apple’s wishes, and may use the occasion to try to tilt the balance of power in their favor. Will Verizon and AT&T, which both also sell phones which run the competing Android operating system, be willing to fully market the iPhone 5 in its own right, or will they insist Apple give them favorable terms? And that’s before non-iPhone carriers like Sprint and T-Mobile enter the equation. They ostensibly both want the iPhone 5, but negotiations will still be required before that happens. And carriers can be less than forthcoming when it comes to promises they make to phone manufacturers, even when those promises are written into the contract. Just ask Steve Jobs, who got played by AT&T back in 2007…

Somewhere between the time in which Apple and AT&T decided on a five year exclusive iPhone partnership and the time the first iPhone actually launched, AT&T gained a new CEO and suddenly didn’t seem interested in fulfilling its contractual obligations anymore. AT&T’s new CEO showed up to the iPhone unveiling in early 2007 and read from cue cards, acting like he wanted no part of it. Sure enough, AT&T never bothered to build out its subpar network, leaving major gaps in 3G coverage which still haven’t been filled to this day, leaving iPhone users in small town relying on the ancient EDGE network. That can’t be what Jobs had in mind when he ceded all the leverage he had, the ability to put the iPhone on multiple carriers, in favor of getting into bed exclusively with a single carrier with no legal way out of it for years to come. AT&T’s attitude appeared to be “Sue us if you want, but we’re not giving you what we agreed to because competent service would cost us too much.” Steve Jobs, a ruthless legend, couldn’t overcome AT&T’s stubborn comatose attitude. And now Tim Cook must face the likes of not just one non-caring carrier, but at least two and perhaps all four. He does, however, have one thing Jobs lacked: leverage…

Jobs’ mistake was that once he granted long term exclusivity to AT&T, he no longer had any way of controlling the carrier. Suing ones own partner is rarely a strategy which will get you ahead, and the carrier always seemingly managed to do just enough to make it not worth Apple’s trouble to sue its way out of the exclusivity contract. But to Jobs’ credit, he did get out of the deal about a year and a half early, wasting no time in launching a Verizon iPhone 4 immediately. But with the iPhone 5, Tim Cook will have a different landscape: he’s already got the new iPhone pegged for AT&T and Verizon both. That means he decides which carrier gets new iPhone 5 inventory first, which carrier Apple lists first on the iPhone ordering page of its website, which carrier Apple Store employees recommend to iPhone buyers. Unlike Jobs, who spent years having to publicly make excuses on behalf of exclusive partner AT&T in order to allow the iPhone to save face, Cook gets to pit the two carriers against each other. And even if both of them shrug off his attempts at pitting them against each other, Sprint and T-mobile are a mere phone call away. Here’s more on the iPhone 5.

Tim Cook has a greater challenge with the iPhone 5 than merely getting the tardy smartphone out the door on a release date which arrives before users and investors begin to grumble more loudly than they are now. The new Apple CEO must deal with the likes of carriers like Verizon and AT&T, companies which don’t share Apple’s vision for creating ideal product experiences. From the start of Apple’s iPhone foray in 2007, Jobs has been in battle with carriers all along: AT&T builds the minimum number of towers it thinks it needs to keep its customers from actually jumping ship to another carrier, as opposed to merely being disappointed enough that they keep threatening to. The carrier stood in the way of Apple’s efforts to deliver products like tethering and MMS to customers. And even as Apple has expanded the iPhone to Verizon, there’s now the contentious issue of the latest iPhone carrier wanting to limit user data plans so it can hit users with overage charges as a profit strategy, while Apple simply wants customers to use products like the iPhone to their fullest. Tim Cook, you’re up to bat.
The iPhone 5 release date will be merely the first test which Cook faces in this regard, but it’ll be significant in the carriers may smell blood in the water in terms of pushback against Apple’s wishes, and may use the occasion to try to tilt the balance of power in their favor. Will Verizon and AT&T, which both also sell phones which run the competing Android operating system, be willing to fully market the iPhone 5 in its own right, or will they insist Apple give them favorable terms? And that’s before non-iPhone carriers like Sprint and T-Mobile enter the equation. They ostensibly both want the iPhone 5, but negotiations will still be required before that happens. And carriers can be less than forthcoming when it comes to promises they make to phone manufacturers, even when those promises are written into the contract. Just ask Steve Jobs, who got played by AT&T back in 2007…
Somewhere between the time in which Apple and AT&T decided on a five year exclusive iPhone partnership and the time the first iPhone actually launched, AT&T gained a new CEO and suddenly didn’t seem interested in fulfilling its contractual obligations anymore. AT&T’s new CEO showed up to the iPhone unveiling in early 2007 and read from cue cards, acting like he wanted no part of it. Sure enough, AT&T never bothered to build out its subpar network, leaving major gaps in 3G coverage which still haven’t been filled to this day, leaving iPhone users in small town relying on the ancient EDGE network. That can’t be what Jobs had in mind when he ceded all the leverage he had, the ability to put the iPhone on multiple carriers, in favor of getting into bed exclusively with a single carrier with no legal way out of it for years to come. AT&T’s attitude appeared to be “Sue us if you want, but we’re not giving you what we agreed to because competent service would cost us too much.” Steve Jobs, a ruthless legend, couldn’t overcome AT&T’s stubborn comatose attitude. And now Tim Cook must face the likes of not just one non-caring carrier, but at least two and perhaps all four. He does, however, have one thing Jobs lacked: leverage…
Jobs’ mistake was that once he granted long term exclusivity to AT&T, he no longer had any way of controlling the carrier. Suing ones own partner is rarely a strategy which will get you ahead, and the carrier always seemingly managed to do just enough to make it not worth Apple’s trouble to sue its way out of the exclusivity contract. But to Jobs’ credit, he did get out of the deal about a year and a half early, wasting no time in launching a Verizon iPhone 4 immediately. But with the iPhone 5, Tim Cook will have a different landscape: he’s already got the new iPhone pegged for AT&T and Verizon both. That means he decides which carrier gets new iPhone 5 inventory first, which carrier Apple lists first on the iPhone ordering page of its website, which carrier Apple Store employees recommend to iPhone buyers. Unlike Jobs, who spent years having to publicly make excuses on behalf of exclusive partner AT&T in order to allow the iPhone to save face, Cook gets to pit the two carriers against each other. And even if both of them shrug off his attempts at pitting them against each other, Sprint and T-mobile are a mere phone call away. Here’s more on the iPhone 5.

– Article source: beatweek.com