Risotto’s weblog

Because it seems like just everyone is making wild predictions about the next iPhone, let me share my very own insider story.

The next iPhone will not have a 3G radio, it will come with a pre-installed 4G IMS radio. 3G will be skipped in benefit of gaining an edge over fierce competitors. IMS is the forthcoming cell phone standard enhanced for multimedia support over IP networks. Apple is said to include a Wimax antenna along with the WiFi and WCDMA radio for cell phone communication. This information comes from a very credible source inside Apple whose identity, I can neither confirm nor publish of course.

Also, a high AT&T representative, that also requested to stay unnamed, is confirming, that AT&T will sell the next 4G iphone for just $1 with a 24 month contract, similar to many offerings in Europe. This comes just after some other source at AT&T leaked earlier, that the iPhone could be sold for just $199. Well, let me say this, that according to common wishful thinking, the latest report must be the most accurate.

The next iPhone is also expected to come in a new encasing. Reports say, that it could come in a 7.5mm thinner case compared to the original and that it would include a polished backplate, similar to a mirror, due to common request by female users of the original device. It’s also said to be available both in the original brick form factor, as well as in a more popular clamshell casing.

From unwiredview.com.

Neither Apple, AT&T nor the Pope were available for comment.

Appelinsider is announcing a 3g iPhone launch for June. While I think there will be an announcement about a 3g iPhone, I don’t think the 3g iPhone will be launched in June. First of all, the FCC filing did not show up yet. Apple has to file devices with new GSM radios with the FCC. This filing has not come up yet, which makes a launch in June very unlikely. I would say, if the 3g iPhone is announced in June, it might be available by the end of September or October, not any earlier.

I also think, that the 3g iPhone will either come out for Europe or the US first, though it won’t be available at the same time in both markets for launch. The reason for this is, that WCDMA 2100 (for the US) and the HSxPA standard (Europe) are not compatible. These standards use different radio bands, and while there are quad-band radio chips support both, they usually support high speed access only on one of the compatible bands.

I guess, the 3g iPhone could be launched in markets that have excellent 3g coverage first. Markets like Switzerland, Austria or Luxembourg might be the first to get the 3g iPhone. These markets are rather small, though in Switzerland’s case, they might be very profitable. Orange does not have an EDGE network in Switzerland and they won’t build one for the iPhone either, though it is likely that Orange will be Apple’s partner for the iPhone in Switzerland. After all, Orange did get the exclusive rights for France, and for the sake of simplicity and economies of scale, Orange would be a first-choice launch partner, for countries where the company is present. This would be consistent with the example of Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile), which got to launch the iPhone in Austria after they successfully launched the iPhone in Germany first. The 3g iPhone, not depending on EDGE anymore, might allow Orange to finally launch the iPhone in those markets as well.

Apple just recently announced the iPhone SDK including a roadmap for the next iPhone firmware functionality. Interestingly, Apple will be adopting ActiveSync for over-the-air synchronization with Exchange and compatible servers (Zimbra?). The firmware update will also include enterprise WPA2 and VPN support. The update is announced for June (read, the end of the month).

The new feature set will most likely make people wonder if there might be a hardware revision waiting as well. Everybody is talking about a 3G (HSxPA) version of the iPhone, and frankly, this would be great for a few geeks and early adopters.

My opinion though is, that Apple won’t change the hardware till late 2008 and will be waiting to introduce new hardware revisions ready for the holiday season. There might be an announcement for new hardware on WWDC, though I don’t expect the new iPhone to come out before the end of the year.

The iPhone can absolutely deliver the new features that have been announced for firmware revision 2.0 without a hardware upgrade. Push e-mail and synching technology does perfectly work over EDGE - it might as well work better over EDGE!

3G does consume a lot of power compared to EDGE and it doesn’t really deliver a positive impact on the application anyway. Furthermore, 3G availability is still very spotty across the world (and incompatible too, USA WCDMA 2100MHz vs. Europe&Asia 1900MHz). Also, bear in mind that 3G network deployments require a much denser network of cell towers and thus make it economically unfeasible to cover rural areas. If you’re a road warrior, you specifically want to be connected where everybody else isn’t. You don’t need great coverage in cities where you can find a WI-FI hotspot at every street corner and bandwidth is all over the place anyway. You want reliable coverage where everybody else would be disconnected.

The lower latency and higher bandwidth available with 3G is not mandatory for push e-mail. E-mail messages are relatively small and can be delivered over EDGE at least as well as over 3G. E-mail messages aren’t real time media streams.

EDGE’s added benefit over 3G is power consumption. Since push e-mail will require the radio to be always on, this is a very important thing to think about. The higher speeds available with 3G won’t justify the higher power consumption. You can see, this makes a lot of sense when you compare Apple to its competition. How come RIM, the biggest manufacturer of push e-mail devices yet, is still delivering most new devices without 3G? They probably recognized that 3G is just a power hog and does not at all deliver any benefits in a push e-mail and OTA synching scenarios.

Given these premises, it is most likely Apple will stick some more time to it’s EDGE powered iPhone. The market currently wants push e-mail, OTA synching, enterprise WI-FI and other features, that all do not require 3G at the moment. It is much more profitable to refine the iPhone’s software instead of launching a new product. The longer Apple sticks with the first generation iPhone, the bigger the profit margins will get. As long as the broad public doesn’t request technical features (i.e. the addition of 3G), but just asks for new applications and software implementable features, Apple will definitively be better off to serve the market with the current iPhone hardware.

Maybe, looking forward towards the end of the year, Apple could be delivering a 3G iPhone introducing new application scenarios. Currently, there are still no widely adopted usage patterns that would require 3G. Your local geek might say, of course there are applications scenarios that require 3G, though listening to streaming web radio and video on the go is not something that the broad public is yet looking for.

The market that requires 3G on the move, has just not been invented yet.

UPDATE: The new beta firmware seems to work with the latest version of Zimbra 5.0, when using a Zimbra Network Edition account with ActiveSync support enabled.