Android-powered Amazon Smartphone May Battle iPhone 5

Analysts are now predicting that Amazon will release a smartphone in 2012 to take on the iPhone 5. But rumors indicate that it will most likely feature the Android operating system.
Sensing that their brand name is quickly becoming a valuable commodity in the mobile gadget marketplace, Amazon may be looking to counter the iPhone 5 in 2012 with a smartphone of their own. According to TechLeash, analysts and tipsters embedded in the Asian tech scene are both pointing to the debut of a 2012 Amazon-branded smartphone. Their report states that “This is more than a hearsay flying around without any support, thinks Mark Mahaney, analyst for Citigroup,” who “wrote with all the confidence ‘Based on our supply chain channel checks in Asia led by Kevin Chang, Citi’s Taipei-based hardware research analyst, we believe an Amazon Smartphone will be launched in 4Q12.’”
The notion of a fourth quarter 2012 release of the Amazon smartphone would make a lot of sense for going up against the iPhone 5 release date, whether it be in June at the next WWDC, as I have reported and believe, or around the same time that the iPhone 4S was released this year. Just as Amazon has positioned the Kindle Fire to take on the iPad 2 as a price leader for this year’s Christmas shopping season, they could very well seek to do the same thing in 2012, perhaps with an even cheaper smartphone with similar features and performance to the iPhone 5.
Now being dubbed the “Kindle Phone” (a plausible name), the article goes on to explain that “Amazon’s smartphone will integrate Texas Instruments’ OMAP 4 processor and is very likely to adopt QCOM’s dual mode 6-series standalone baseband,” an impressive array of hardware, to be sure. But in terms of price, it remains to be seen if Amazon will have the wiggle room to make a cheaper smartphone than the iPhone 5 that still offers robust features, considering that production costs for the Kindle Phone may range between $150 and $170. Considering that the iPhone 4S production cost clocks in at $188, it would seem that Amazon could come in under the iPhone 5′s price tag in 2012, but it remains to be seen how low they will be able to go.
The Kindle Phone — Just Another Android
Perhaps the most interesting consideration about the Kindle Phone is what kind of operating system it may feature. Many have wondered if Amazon could debut a new operating system that differs from the current mobile OS platforms on the market now. However, early going suggests that, in the end, Amazon will opt for Google’s Android.
Should the Kindle Phone end up being “just another Android,” it would seem that Apple will have little to fear in losing market share to Amazon in the smartphone segment, since iPhone users tend to be comprised of users who are smitten with the Apple brand and/or disenchanted with the Android platform.

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iPhone 4 Users May Be Skipping the 4S for the iPhone 5

Strong rumors of a June iPhone 5 release, together with the iPhone 4S being a form factor refresh, may have compelled iPhone 4 users to skip the 4S rush.
While early polls showed that just as many iPhone 4 users were planning to purchase the iPhone 4S iPhone 3G/3Gs users, exit polls are revealing that not nearly as many iPhone 4 users are investing in the new model, opting instead to wait for the iPhone 5. An interesting article published by the Huffington Post indicates that Blackberry and iPhone 3G/3Gs users round out the lion’s share of iPhone 4S sales: “According to a recent survey by consumer electronics site Retrevo: Blackberry users and owners of early-generation iPhones like the 3G and the 3GS, mostly. Per Retrevo’s survey of over 1,300 electronics shoppers.”
The new survey that Huffington is referencing contradicts earlier polls that indicated a surprising number of iPhone 4 users who were planning on purchasing the iPhone 4S, in spite of it featuring the same form factor and screen size of the iPhone 4. The early Retrevo study from October 12th indicated that “the study actually found almost as many iPhone 4 owners (42%) as iPhone 3G/3GS owners (44%) planning to buy an iPhone 4S,” and that ”BlackBerry owners (24%) were less interested in switching to an iPhone than we found in previous studies.”
But these initial findings are not proving to be completely accurate in the early going of iPhone 4S sales.
Still, there are elements of the Retrevo poll that hint at why iPhone 4 users — and smartphone users as a whole — may be changing their minds about the iPhone 4S. Huffington points out that, “Retrevo also surveyed its customers’ reactions to the new iPhone 4S and found that 47 percent of iPhone owners were disappointed in the new phone. The biggest reason, however, was not the lack of a new design (disappointing 21 percent of respondents), but rather the lack of 4G capability.” The disappointment over the form factor refresh and lack of 4G has resulted in an overall skepticism about the 4S that most likely would have not been the case had the iPhone 5 debuted in 2011: when asked in October, “Will you be buying the iPhone 4S?” only 24% indicated “yes,” in the survey, with 50% indicating “no” and 26% indicating “not sure.”
It would be interesting to know where those 26% “not sure” respondents stand today with the iPhone 4S, what with the reported battery issues and the prospect of the iPhone 5 being released in June of 2012 at the WWDC. At the same time, it should not come as a surprise that iPhone 4 users may end up passing on the iPhone 4S and wait for the iPhone 5: it has been a pattern among iPhone users to skip an iteration before investing in a new model. For this reason, it would make sense that the majority of iPhone 4S customers would be legacy iPhone 3G/3Gs users.
It’s also easy to account for Blackberry users switching to the iPhone 4S: RIM had a tough year and appears to be in their death knell. Blackberry users are fleeing the sinking ship.
But considering that, of the 110+ million iPhone units sold since its debut, statistics show that the majority of iPhones sold are iPhone 4 models, and that the iPhone 4 is the most popular smartphone in the U.S. market, it could mean that the iPhone 4S will in the end not live up to the hefty estimates predicted by analysts regarding the iPhone 5.

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iPhone 5 Release Date: 7+ Inch iPad 3 Would Defy Steve Jobs’ View On Mini Tablets

In his lifetime, Steve Jobs downplayed the viability of sub-9-inch tablets, tacitly stating that Apple would never release a mini iPad. But new rumors of a 7-inch “mini” iPad 3 would be Apple’s first defiance of Steve Jobs’ vision for future Apple devices. Could a Spring iPhone 5 Release Date also include a mini iPad 3?
The “mini” iPad rumor has been kicking around the Apple rumor mill for well over a year now, with many sources along the way claiming that the iPad 3 would feature either a smaller screen, or a “mini” option to the standard 9.7-inch version. After unfounded rumors that the iPad 3 would be arriving alongside the iPhone 5 in October of 2011 proved to be false, little has been said about the prospect of new tablet dimensions for the 2012 iPad until recently.
An article today in the Korean Times claims that there are credible sources that Apple is planning on releasing a 7″+ version of the iPad 3 in the Spring of 2011. According to the article: “The Korea Times is reporting that Apple is developing a smaller iPad (being called the iPad mini) with a 7.35-inch display, and a 4 inch iPhone 5. Apple and LG are reportedly negotiating a $1.1 billion deal for long-term display parts for these upcoming iOS devices from 2012 to 2016.”
Of course, if Apple was to finally release an iPad model that is below the 9.7-inch mark, it would be a major departure from the will of Steve Jobs, who never believed that “mini” tablets were viable long-term designs for mobile computing. Likely the mini tablet to a device that doesn’t know if it is either a smartphone or tablet. He even specifically stated that “The seven-inch tablets are tweeners: too big to compete with a smartphone, and too small to compete with an iPad.” With this quote in mind, would new Apple CEO Tim Cook defy Steve Jobs this soon after his death and release a 7-inch iPad?
I am beginning to think that he would.
An article on BGR recently stated that, based on Cook’s recent comments about the success of the Kindle Fire, “Cook said he was confident with the products that Apple has coming down the pipeline. The ‘iPad mini’ could be one such product — one that may go toe-to-toe with the Kindle Fire. Rumors have suggested the tablet may be smaller, or at least cheaper, than the current iPad 2. If a cheaper iPad does debut next year, the fight between Amazon and Apple could come down to each company’s respective ecosystem.”
Now that Apple is out of the hands of its founder and visionary and in the hands of a hired hand who answers to the bottom line of a board of directors, Apple is bound to see some sort of divergence from what it has been while Steve Jobs was alive. In past, investors, executives, and customers could trust Steve Jobs and his vision — even in the face of evidence to suggest that he might be wrong — based simply on his track record for success and beloved creativity. But as the years pass without Steve Jobs at the helm, we will see Apple take action on product development that Mr. Jobs would have disagreed with. Over time, the “what would Steve do?” ethic will recede.
The question is, will Apple defy Steve Jobs’ views on the mini tablet less than a year after his death?

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Was the iPhone 5 Release Date Supposed To Be in 2011?

An inside source is now claiming that Steve Jobs and Apple engineers had planned on the iPhone 5 being released in 2011, but shelved it at the last minute for the iPhone 4S.
As the iPhone 5 rumor mill begins to heat up again around what will be the iPhone 5 release date in 2012, new claims are coming to the surface that put the iPhone 5′s delay into better focus. An intriguing (and albeit unconfirmed) report from Business Insider claims that Apple was pro-actively moving forward with an iPhone 5 prototype, but abruptly halted its production about three months before the release of the iPhone 4S. According to the story: “Our source said that Apple engineers he knows thought until about three months before the iPhone 4S was released, that a new fully re-designed iPhone was going to be Apple’s next big announcement. This source said that he spent about two weeks with one prototype version of this phone.”
The iPhone 5 News Blog has reported on several stories and rumors in the past that would seem to corroborate this new claim.
On August 9th, we reported that, according to our own inside source, the 2011 iPhone was not going to be the iPhone 5, but rather the “iPhone 4GS.” The name was off, but our source was told by his own deep sources that the next iPhone would be a refresh of the iPhone 4. He followed that claim up on August 22nd by stating definitively, “the new iPhone will be a upgraded version of iPhone 4. Got this info from 2 different reliable sources.”
Our source’s timeline fits in with the timeline that Business Insider suggests: that our source was made privy to the decision to go with the iPhone 4S just about a month after Apple engineers and Steve Jobs had made the decision.
Another thing to consider is that Cupertino may have been already divided on whether to move forward with the iPhone 5 as early as the WWDC. At the time, Samsung was threatening Apple’s patents with aggressive new lawsuits that some believed could compel Apple to further delay the release of the iPhone 5.
More recent news that the full-fledged iPhone 5 never materialized in 2011 due to a faulty key component also suggests that this story may connect with what Business Insider is reporting today, and that the failure to get the A6 processor into successful pre-production may have been the cataylist for shelving the iPhone 5 in 2011. We reported about TSMC beginning work on the A6 on August 14th, which again is within the timeframe of this new story.
The Good NEws About the iPhone 5 Release Date Failure
As more and more of these reports about the failure to release the iPhone 5 in 2011 emerge, it makes the iPhone 4S seem more and more like a stand-in for what Apple had originally intended. And while that sentiment may not sit well with new iPhone 4S users, it does help to reignite excitement over the eventual 2012 iPhone 5 release — and when the iPhone 5 release date may in fact be.
I personally believe that, since the iPhone 5 prototype may already be finished and that the delay was caused by issues with one key component, like the processor, that Apple will not wait another 12+ months to release it. This, along with the fact that our own exclusive inside source is telling us that the iPhone 5 will be released in June of 2012, makes me believe that we are closer to a release than we think.
While iPhone 5 production may have been an epic fail in 2011, the fact that Cupertino was so close to releasing it at least gives us hope that little is left to do in order to make it a reality in 2012.

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