Jackass of the Week: Eric Mack

Eric Mack, CNet:

Just to be clear on what I’m saying, my best educated guesses are that we will see a new iPhone this summer, and it will be an iPhone 5S with mostly iterative updates, a choice of colors, and perhaps the lower-cost model of the latest rumors. But the real question is: then what?

My gut tells me the iPhone as we know it will be done at that point. I have a hunch there will never be an iPhone 6, because Apple will be forced to move into a significantly different form factor to keep people interested and compete with the movement toward bigger phablet-like thingies and emerging wearable electronics (lots of us have fat thumbs, after all). Or, there will be an iPhone 6 and it will disappoint.

For context, the iPhone 4S was the best-selling smartphone in history, the iPhone 5 appears set to sell even better than the 4S did, and Apple currently reaps upwards of 70–75 percent of all profit in the handset industry. So Mack thinks they’ll make one more, it’ll disappoint, and that’ll be that and the iPhone will move into the Home for Retired Apple Product Lines, down the hall from the Newton. OK.

★ Sunday, 20 January 2013