The new Apple iPhone could be obsolete by the time Macworld San Francisco comes around in January 2008 insiders have said.
Apple has already spoken to their manufacturing partners in Asia about the next generation of the iPhone with SmartOffice being told that major software and hardware changes are expected to be introduced to cater for non US markets such as Europe, Asia and Australia.
Among the new capabilities will be GPS and expanded WiFi capability as well as the ability to sync with email servers. Apple research and development executives are according to sources in Taiwan trying to overcome a lack of expanded media support for Flash memory.
In Australia there is also concern that the phone in its present configuration will not be fast enough to handle the Telstra Next G Network, which is described as the world’s fastest mobile phone network.
With the planned debut of Apple’s iPhone, President of the Consumer Electronics Association Gary Shapiro asked four senior executives their opinions of the introduction and if it is, as some have claimed, the most important introduction in CE of the past 20 years.
Ron Garriques, president/CEO of Dell Global Consumer Group, Stan Glasgow, president/COO of Sony Electronics, Stewart Muller, president/CEO of Philips Consumer Electronics, and Joseph Taylor, a Vice President at Panasonic were members of the panel that were asked the question by Gary Shapiro, president at the annual CE Presidents Summit.
Ron Garriques, president/CEO of Dell Global Consumer Group, said, “If you can reset in the consumers’ minds that cell phones can be priced at $499 to $699, instead of the thinking that it is just $1, that’s good.” He echoed the view of his colleagues that “the marketing and hype surrounding iPhone is good,” and said that even if iPhone isn’t all that it is supposed to be “you know that they are working on iPhone2, iPhone3 and 4 versions.”
Taylor said, “Apple makes intuitive products. You can open the box and figure them out in two minutes. We can learn from Apple and make things easier to use.”