As I was being a bit lazy (on a conference call), I caught this post from the latest Apple insider. Mike Abramsky, an analyst, details how he believes the iPhone will mature :Abramsky speculated that upcoming iPhone software updates would include new widgets, peer-to-peer applications (chat, picture messaging, social networking), location-based services, MMS support, home networking, and possibly some integration with Mac OS X Leopard.
"No word however on integration to Microsoft Exchange," he wrote. "It appears to us that Apple, classically, has more pleasant surprises in store for iPhone fans and investors."
After speaking with Joswiak, the analyst also made changes to his predictions for future iPhone models. Although he spoke of "higher resolution" iPhones earlier this month, Abramsky now says he expects Apple to differentiate its iPhone lineup not by features, but by price and memory capacity. The move, he explained, would be similar to how the company grew its iPod lineup, simplifying market positioning.
"This affirms our view of a lower priced ($349-399) iPhone [in the fourth calendar quarter of 2007 or first calendar quarter of 2008], with a higher priced version at higher capacity, to expand its market opportunity," the analyst wrote.
I personally find this fascinating, as Apple plans to differentiate the iPhone not by features, but by price and performance. If you recall, for most of era of competitive phone service, market success was found only through variations in price, as the basic service was essentially feature complete, and value added services had benefits which were only marginally valuable. Could it be that Apple has already caught on to what took telecom 100 years to understand?
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