Apple Inc to woo shoppers sans iPhone redesign

This holidays, Apple Inc would have to prove it’s what’s inside that matters most. With its latest iPhone 4S, Apple didn’t tinker with the outside the device, focusing instead on improving the processor, camera as well as software interface. The challenge would be persuading shoppers to upgrade to some new product that looks exactly like their old 1.

Chief executive officer Tim Cook, in his first major product release since overtaking for Steve Jobs, is counting on faster speed, voice recognition and also the iCloud storage service to make the iPhone a achievement. The device, Apple’s best-selling product, will face off towards an army of fresh smartphones running Google Inc’s Google android, including Samsung Electronics Co’s Galaxy S II and LG Consumer electronics Inc’s Thrill 4G.

Apple “didn’t quite understand how revved upward expectations had gotten, ” said Frank Gillett, an analyzer at Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Forrester Research Inc. Some users were buying more revolutionary iPhone 5, rather than just a faster apple iphone 4, he said. Instead, “Apple is asking people to appreciate and give all of them credit for a highly engineered and integrated set of services and products. ”

JOBS ABSENT
Cook also has to promote the brand new iPhone without as much day-to-day assistance from Jobs, whose expertise in marketing and design helped turn Apple to the world’s most valuable technology company. Jobs, who switched through CEO to chairman on August 24, didn’t appear in the unveiling of the iPhone 4S yesterday. The 56-year-old has taken three medical leaves in the last seven years amid a battle with a rare type of cancer.

The success of the iPhone has helped Apple weather market turmoil and also the resignation of Jobs, with the shares gaining 15 percent this year on the Nasdaq Stock Market. In yesterday’s buying and selling, Apple fell $2. 10, or less than one percent, to $372. 50. The stock slid 0. 5 per cent to the same as $370. 57 as of 10: 03 am in German born trading.

Apple touted the inside changes to the apple iphone 4S at yesterday’s event, held at its headquarters within Cupertino, California. The A5 chip would make graphics 7 times speedier and deliver twice the processing power. The model will definitely cost $199, $299 and $399, depending on features, and will be available from Sprint Nextel Corp for the very first time. Apple already had agreements with AT&T Inc and Verizon Cellular.

MOTOROLA DEAL
“Inside, it is all new, ” stated Phil Schiller, a senior vice-president in charge of item marketing.

At stake is leadership in the market with regard to smartphones, which is projected to double by 2015, based on IDC. A billion handsets would be sold that 12 months, the research firm estimates. While the iPhone is the world’s most widely used smartphone, the Android operating system is more widely utilized by the industry.

Google aims to bolster that position by purchasing its mobile-phone manufacturer, Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. A full redesign underneath the iPhone 5 banner, along with a revamped iPhone four, would have given Apple more ammunition to use against Google and it is Android partners. Even so, Apple benefits from more efficient manufacturing by keeping exactly the same body design, Gillett said.

“One thing people don’t understand about Apple is they don’t just change the appearance for the heck of it, ” he said. “They think about it for many years. ”

The iPhone 4S, available from October 14, might have a camera that has 60 per cent more pixels and may shoot high-definition video. The device also relies on an “intelligent antenna system” that’s made to improve call quality and works with both CDMA as well as GSM wireless standards. Users would have up to eight hours of talk time on a single charge.

Source : Business-Standard