Knowing Apple, we all knew this was going to happen...at one point or another. However, could it really be true that we have underestimated the delivery time for the smaller, and more affordable iPhone Nano (if that's what it's even called finally)? Latest rumor has it that it might be much closer to reality than we originally imagined it to be. As the iPhone; the current full featured model (that is out now) went into the production stage...AppleInsider (who got the information from 'extremely reputable' sources) states that the smaller iPhone Nano, came out of the engineering labs.
Extremely reputable sources have told AppleInsider in recent weeks that the company's iPhone roadmap for the 2007 calendar year includes not one but two distinct models, the second of which is set to turn up just months after the first.
According to one source, development of the second model has followed so closely on the heels of the inaugural iPhone that it was making its final pass through engineering around the same time that today's model hit the manufacturing lines back in May or early June.
Conceived as a scaled back, lower cost alternative to today's iPhone, the second iteration of the handset is presumed to marry iPod functionality with rudimentary cellular capabilities. More resource-heavy Internet browsing and e-mail capabilities are not expected of the device.
In providing the first visual descriptions of the handset, long-standing industry sources -- who've continually been in tune with Apple's future music directions -- have dubbed the device "an iPhone nano" because they say it best describes the the handset's overall form-factor and aesthetic.
Pricing of the new handset is expected to fall significantly below the $500+ asking cost of today's iPhone models, these sources say, but not so much so as to pinch sales of an upcoming revision to the iPod nano.
This means that the iPhone Nano, with that hypothetical name, has been in the works for quite some months now. Thus (from the article) pricing wise it is said to be much lower than the full featured iPhone, however not low enough and near the iPod Nano range, to prevent cannibalization of it's sales.
As for how the user input is going to be for the device:
The filings published earlier this month detailed telephone and text entry interfaces for a cellular-capable device via a virtual rotary click-wheel. One in particular described segmenting a click-wheel's circular shape into various regions to enable quick phone dialing by sensing which region was touched.
Source in the full article link.
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