Apple to Unveil Next iPhone?

The eye of the wireless industry is turning to San Francisco this morning, where Apple chief executive Steve Jobs is expected to unveil an upgraded version of the company’s breakthrough iPhone (News - Alert) at a developers’ conference.

Analysts say they expect Apple (News - Alert) to address one of its iPhone’s key flaws – slow Web access – by introducing a new device that takes advantage of a faster third-generation network technology.

According to San Jose’s paper of record, The Mercury News, technology consultant Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group, believes the so-called “3G” connectivity is crucial for Apple.

“It’s clear they have to do 3G

,” Enderle told The Mercury News.

Yet Jobs may focus on ways that the iPhone – widely praised and hyped for its touchscreen technology – is more similar to a portable computer than a mobile communications machine, according to the paper.

Jobs hasn’t come out and said just what he’s going to introduce at the Apple World Wide Developers’ Conference.

The British Broadcasting Corporation is reporting that rival handset manufacturers have also been designing devices which assume the iPhone’s mantle as the “most desirable phone on the market,” including Nokia’s (News - Alert) N96 and the Blackberry Thunder.

Google’s Android platform also is expected to hit mobile phones later this year, adding yet more competition to the high-end consumer smartphone market.

The so-called Android software’s unveiling, made at the Internet giant’s annual “Google I/O” developers’ conference in San Francisco about two weeks ago, included a demonstration of a phone using the new application.

The device’s touch-screen display included a number of colorful icons that launched Web programs such as g-mail, or could notify a user of imminent appointments, reminders, notes and unread e-mail.

Google’s director of mobile platforms, Andy Rubin – founder of Android, which Google bought three years ago – said some of the software’s features were shown for the first time at the conference.

Rubin emphasized that the Android software – widely seen as the lynchpin of the Google’s so-called “Open Handset Alliance (News - Alert),” a consortium of hardware, software and telecom companies that’s working on an open source mobile platform for developers – is secure.

“Many of the devices used today are based on 20-year-old platforms, when security wasn’t really thought about,” Rubin said, according to reports. “Starting from a clean slate has its advantages. This is a platform that will let the carriers to more innovative things.”

The software will be available later this year, Rubin said.

Once that’s done, the alliance will make it available to different mobile devices, with the aim of creating a single, unified way to distribute mobile applications.

It’s a fertile market, according to statistics.

Apple has sold more than five million iPhones since the device debuted in the United States last June, the company says it’s on course to sell 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008.

Yet the device’s high price may be keeping it from selling more and spreading faster, analysts say.

While the iPhone has a 20 percent share of the U.S. smartphone market, it has only a 5 percent share of the global market, according to the BBC.

The company is being rumored to do a U-turn on its pricing policy and let mobile network partners subsidize the cost of the iPhone.

That decision could see the cost of an iPhone slashed, according to reports in the Financial Times (News - Alert).

Michael Dinan is a TMCNet Editor. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

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Apple to Unveil Next iPhone?

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