This is not a rumor
by Volker Weber
I posted a question "will Apple make a gold iPhone" on Facebook and posted it again this morning with instructions how to answer. There are more "no" votes than "yes", and I believe that people are right.
It's pretty easy to anodize aluminum in gold, and it has been done and photographed. Now look at the black and the white iPhone 5. The black one chips badly at the chamfer. Can you imagine how a gold anodized iPhone will look after a few weeks? It does not make sense to me that Apple would build anything that ages so badly.
I do believe however that Apple will make a polycarbonate iPhone. Leaks can show you any color. As soon as you have the tooling, you can make it any color by mixing the substrate. That does not necessarily show you the colors the iPhone will be made available in.
Why do I believe that Apple will make both a black & white aluminum and polycarbonate iPhones? I think they will be dropping the old form factor of the iPhone 4(S). The iPhone 4(S) is too fragile with its glass backplate. Apple needs a kid phone, and Nokia has demonstrated the viability of this design.
Making two different bodies will let Apple differentiate on more than memory. They could have two different screen technologies for instance. And Apple would no longer need to offer old designs as entry level phones.
Comments
There are rumours of a 'champagne' coloured iPhone though.
Regarding the polycarbonate iPhones. The sentence "Nokia has demonstrated the viability of this design" makes little sense to me.
The iPhone 3G and 3Gs both were polycarbonate. Why think that Apple looks to Nokia in this respect?? Why mention Nokia at all?
Mostly because colorful polycarbonate phones are a landmark Nokia design.
> And Apple would no longer need to offer old designs as entry level phones.
Ich glaube, das ist Apples Hauptmotivation. Wenn ich mir meine verwöhnten Kids angucke, ist ein iPhone schon schwer cool – aber es muss halt das neue sein. Selbst wenn das 4/4S explizit für das Kind erworben wurde, gilt es als das abgelegte iPhone von den Eltern. Sehr uncool (in deren Augen).
Ein zweiter Aspekt ist Apples erklärtes Ziel mehr iPhones über die eigenen Apple Stores zu vertreiben. Die teuren iPhone 5/5S gehen (für nicht Geeks) eher subventioniert. Ohne Neuvertrag wäre in 5C sicher erschwinglicher und könnte den Halo-Effekt der Apple Stores voll ausspielen.
Kriegen die Eltern nicht längst die abgelegten iPhones der Kids?
Lars, because of this:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=nokia+lumia+color
It is nice that Apple is following here - maybe it helps slowing down the droid a little bit.
> And Apple would no longer need to offer old designs as entry level phones.
I think the main reason is that Apple wants to get rid off the 3.5" retina display for their phones and just offer 4" devices with one retina resolution instead of two.
Hubert.
The 5th Gen iPod comes in colours, so did the iPod Mini and Nano - even despite being more expensively aluminium cases.
All of a sudden, Nokia invented colours? I think they should sue, then! ;-)
> Nokia invented colours
Sorry, Lars. I am not going to argue on that level.
