iPhone 5 “Lite” Rumor Suggests Confusing, Complicated Choices For iPhone Users

If you have been following the iPhone 5 rumor mill since its beginning, then this isn’t the first time (nor likely the last) that you will hear rumors of two iPhone 5 species coming to the next iPhone release. Some have framed the rumor as an iPhone 5 “pro” model and a “lite” model, whereas others have imagined the fabled iPhone 4s playing the “lite” role to the “pro” iPhone 5 in September. There were even rumors of an iPhone 5 Nano for some time — a smaller version of the iPhone that would give users a truly pocket-sized option.
The most recent iPhone 5 rumor suggests that, “The iPhone ‘Lite’, whose name is yet to be confirmed, will feature components that are native to the iPhone 4, except smaller and cheaper.” This rumor, which purportedly comes from “sources familiar with the matter,” are completely unconfirmed, and are just a likely to have come from an underpaid customer service representative at an AT&T kiosk at the mall than anyone inside the walls of Cupertino.
The new rumor seeks to substantiate the rumor by stating that “the target markets of the so-called iPhone ‘Lite’ are those in developing countries, where a lower price point would prove more effective than piling on the technology,” and that “Charlie Wolf, with Needham & Company told Bloomberg that ‘Apple’s strategy is changing from targeting 25 per cent of the global mobile phone market…to 100 per cent.’”
Even if lowering the price point of the iPhone to accommodate developing countries’ ec0nomies indeed is a prevailing goal at Apple, Inc., there is no reason to believe that Apple would in fact offer a value-priced version of the new iPhone 5, when the company is most likely preparing to discount the iPhone upon the release of the iPhone 5. In this way, the iPhone 4 will become the “iPhone lite” that comprises this rumor.
Furthermore, if Apple was to release an iPhone 5, iPhone 5 “lite,” and keep selling the iPhone 4, it would present a complex and confusing set of choices for iPhone customers, who would find it difficult to discern the real difference in quality and performance between an iPhone 5 “lite” that would “feature components that are native to the iPhone 4″ and the original iPhone 4 itself.
Another consideration is that two versions of the iPhone 5 may dilute the market impact of the much-anticipated device.
What do you think? Would you find a smaller, cheaper iPhone 5 “lite” or “nano” desireable, or are smaller mobile phones “so 1998?”