Techcrunch is reporting from the usual “reliable sources” that one reason why there was no discussion of iOS 5 at the iPad 2 unveiling was that iOS 5 is going to be delayed until the fall, even though previous iOS updates have been done in the spring, making it a tradition of sorts. Furthermore, the upcoming WWDC will be “software only” and will not include the unveiling of any new hardware, in particular the iPhone 5, which will presumably be released concurrently with the iOS update.The new iOS update is rumored to be focused on “the cloud” and location-based services. Amazon’s new cloud-based music locker service is certainly the harbinger of a new trend, and Apple us undoubtedly scrambling to release an iTunes-centric version of a similar service.
You can read more analysis of the iOS scuttlebutt at Edible Apple, who passed along another rumor from a German site that Apple is planning a special iOS/Mobile Me event in April.
Apple’s MobileMe service hasn’t been particularly popular, mostly because it’s rather expensive compared to the various free services from Google and others that offer similar functionality. But there are some gems in there, and this discussion of iOS 5’s possible focus on location-based services, such as tools enabling you to find your iOS-using friends, makes me think that Apple might be planning on re-branding its location services under the MobileMe name. Now that the iPhone is facing some stuff competition, Apple’s going to have to compete on the strength of its software and the quality of its integrated suite of apps and services. Right now would be a good time to unleash MobileMe, take its most unique features, add some new ones (location), and make it free to all iOS users. That would raise the bar. One of Android’s biggest advantages is suite of free Google services it draws from. Apple should follow suit.
I’d say that not releasing a new iPhone at the usual interval is a sign of what I – and many, more intelligent people with me – have been predicting for about 18 months now: a single company such as Apple cannot possibly keep up with the hardware development cycle of all other phone makers. Apple insists on doing most of the things on their own, which has its advantages – but as history has shown, it will eventually come back to bite you in your ass. That’s why Apple was the last with a 1Ghz phone, and now will be woefully behind with stepping into the multicore race.
Of course, the usual suspects will chime in with how processor speed and such doesn’t matter – and they are just as wrong now as they were back when Apple was trying to sell outdated and underspecced PowerPC processors. The numbers do matter. We geeks may not like it, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
Apple will have to sell the iPhone on software alone. Considering most people around me seem to buy a phone based on teh shiny-factor, that might be a harder sell than they think.
Edited 2011-03-30 16:08 UTC
Is there any hard evidence whatsoever that the change in release schedule is due to having trouble “keeping up”?
Releases have been on an almost traditional, annual schedule until now (which explains more on the timing of release for a 1Ghz phone than anything else).
The ‘woefully behind’ is needlessly melodramatic, and actually I think it’s usually only ‘us geeks’ that care about the numbers.
If the user-experience or games development were being hampered by the critical need for a CPU upgrade I would agree with you, but I see no evidence of that. It’s only 3 months we’re talking here! Only someone who hovers on tech web-sites really cares about that time-span.
I imagine any delay would be partly to do OS X Lion. Perhaps Apple would rather not release an iPhone 5 with iOS 4 and have their next-generation get criticism about still having poor notifications, lack of widgets, etc. As I said, a hardware update is not critical and Android phones, though more powerful, are hardly demonstrably slicker in any aspect of real-life usage.
I just don’t know why you’re on your soap-box about this. Apple have managed 4 iterations of the iPhone and 2 iterations of the iPad on time, so it’s a bit premature to call the system flawed.
Chris
Edited 2011-03-30 16:55 UTC
I agree as well. In fact, I thought one of the main reasons for the iPhone/iPad’s success was the fact that the average person DOESN’T care about specs much at all. Geeks will tout a dual core CPU, 1gb of RAM, USB, SD card, etc, while Joe Sixpack just gives them a blank stare.
It’s more about the user experience (iOS being simple enough that a 2yo can use it) and the ecosystem (hardware+app/music/book stores+iTunes to tie it all together).
I agree partly. Doing everything internally would make it hard to keep up. But, I don’t think Apple does everything internally.
It seems when they do decide to use make components themselves it has to do with cutting costs or having more control over integration or some such thing.
In any case they don’t seem to be having problems keeping up. The way I hear it the reason they’re last to adopt some of the latest specs is because of their design choices.
By the way none of this in the slightest bit seems to be a issue with consumers. Only geeks know or care about specs.
I have to agree… I have *never* heard a regular consumer ask about the speed of a phone before purchase. You might hear someone complain about if a phone is slow or lags but it doesn’t translate into worries about processor speed the way it used to with computers, ages ago.
Only geeks care.
You’re not getting it.
Nobody *asked* about processor speed either. Yet, when the salesman states this one has bmgrth Ghz, and that one bmgrth+1 Ghz for the same price, people will be tempted to for the latter. They don’t care on a conscious level – they care on a sub-conscious level. Moar = better.
That’s how man works. That’s why we’re getting so fat here in the west.
I think you intentionally don’t get it and you’re inventing a scenario just to suit your agenda (whether it be pageviews or something else). Sales people push a lot of buzzwords at people but cpu speed is not high on the list, ime.
They care about apps, connectivity, cameras, storage, screen size, etc… things like cpu speed are not in the normal sales spiel when pushing a phone on every day consumers. Just take a look around a site like the phone section of bestbuy.com and see how often CPU speed is listed in upfront bullet specs. Most of the time you have to dig deeply for it.
(…and for the record, I have no dog in this race. I neither have nor want an iPhone…)
Btw, you seem to have ignored my very first enquiry to you? I guess there’s no hard evidence.
Edited 2011-03-30 18:56 UTC
I need proof for an opinion? You can never prove this. It’s just something that fits well within an established pattern.
You don’t need proof but it isn’t a credible opinion, nor does it fit, if there’s nothing to back it up. The delay (and it isn’t really a delay as nothing had even been announced) could be for any number of reasons. It could be a change purely due to strategic marketing decisions this year (pushing new iPads in the spring and iPhones in the fall, for example). Maybe the new iOS simply isn’t ready and they don’t want to rush out an iPhone 5 running 4.x software.
Without evidence, one theory is no more likely over any other.
The new iOS isn’t ready?
So you mean they don’t have the manpower to finish it on their regular schedule? What would cause such a lack of manpower, hmm? You realise that actually fits within my theory, right?
Of course, it could be any number of reasons. However, if you look at the past, it’s not at all odd to assume that it could be because Apple is trying to do too much.
Actually, it doesn’t automatically fit as once again you’ve come up with an idea about ‘lack of manpower’ with zero evidence… and I wasn’t aware that every single release of iOS was timed exactly to the release of an iPhone in the past. You’re intentionally looking for excuses that belie an insufficiency on Apple’s part.
If you look at the past, you’ll note that Apple has juggled typical release schedules NUMEROUS times purely for marketing reasons, both on the hardware and the software side. As Apple adds more products to its stable, it only makes sense they would want to space those releases out.
Heck, by all accounts OS X Lion is coming in ahead of schedule and over the last few years it normally seems to get short shrift at Apple in comparison to mobile development. Originally, it was thought Lion would be a late summer release and now it’s looking like it will be ready for release, with a tentative GM test release due any minute, by WWDC
Edited 2011-03-30 19:26 UTC
Ya, because there were never delays in Windows CE/WinMo releases or updates, or Symbian, or NewtonOS, or PalmOS, or Blackberry…..
Because Apple doesn’t use a semi-free VM and SDK on top of a Linux kernel spearheaded by google they are doomed to fail by “trying to much”. Because they actually make products instead of slapping together a cheap piece of plastic based on a lame reference design with a Google stamp on it…. because they write their own code instead of participating in your lame ecosystem which is also quite young.
Good thing all those companies in the 50’s and 60’s like DEC and IBM tried to much or you wouldn’t be posting your half-thought-out rants.
And I say this as a happy Android user. I have a lot of respect for iOS though. I just needed something open…. with a microSD slot….
–Kevin
Actually. You’re the only one in this thread that doesn’t get it. I have never, ever, ever in my life had a salesman tell me how many MHz a mobile phone processor has and I have never heard a non-geek knowing how many MHz his mobile phone has.
People don’t care. When they buy a phone they expect it to be “fast enough” and they extremely rarely know any better. I sincerely doubt even most people working at the Carphone Warehouse or whatever the dutch equivalent is knows how many MHz a phone has.
It is the realm of the geek and it will remain the realm of the geek.
But it’s because they are doing everything internally that their processor for the iPad is so much better than the competition, (CPU is as fast as the competition & the GPU is so much faster).
It is because of their partnerships that the iPhone screen has a much higher res than the competition.
It is because of the OS that they got a head-start in this generation of phones & tablets.
Apple likes to differentiate itself. In the past, a decade ago, that was considered a weakness. But I can’t see how, considering their success in the last 5 years, that you can say that any more.
Edited 2011-03-30 18:15 UTC
Yeah, they do have to sell it on software. There will and have been time in which the iphone was really behind other smart phones hardware wise, other times they’re way ahead.
But shiny-factor? Yes, yes indeed. But what is shiny factor? Well I’m glad you asked.
Shiny factor:
%10 battery life
%30 hardware specs (numbers alone, not actual benchmarks of anything particular)
%30 unicorn horn, ground
%20 graphic design of UI.
%30 unicorn horn, ground
%17 name recognition of phone name.
%13.7 Number of smiley faces in SMS app
The proof that this formula proves that I am right is left as an exercise to the reader.
*Note: percentages may not add up to 100% due to gravitational, accelerational, or any other distortional fields you may be in.
I bet these intelligent people were among the bunch that believed the iPad would flunk as would the iPod.
They seem to be keeping up with competition just fine when it comes to the iPad.
While I have to agree to some extent that they have too much on their plate right now, I believe the delay to September is also a strategic move.
As for MobileMe, the update is long overdue.
Time for Wireless syncing, iTunes music backups and streaming etc.
You are offering a criticism of a company based on a rumor of the delay of an un-annouced hardware platform which you know little about as well as an OS which you know very little about.
Do you find that at all credible?
How can software and hardware that hasn’t been announced at all, much less announced with a release date, be delayed?
Bad news for Android, since the sole porporse of delaying it was to see what Apple had to offert.
Yes this was so obvious that you’d have thought even Thom could see it, but alas. And keep in mind…
Oct 2010: (http://techcrunch.com)
Mar 2011: (http://www.techworld.com.au)
Should we read into this that Google are overstretched and don’t have the resources to get Chrome OS ready for prime-time as they promised?
Edited 2011-03-30 21:11 UTC
Yes.
I think they’re too busy dragging the corpse of chrome os back to the woodshed to release it. It needs to be killed. Bad idea up there with Buzz. Not everything Google does is a good idea.
But they are overstretched yes. Thats their official reason for not releasing Honeycomb. Its ready to be put in production devices, but they’re a bit embarrassed at the code hacks that were necessary to get there.
Android delayed?
This time Thom got the first place in the comment section for trolling! Congratulation, Thom!
It is very funny and at the same time depressing to see on every article Thom’s trolling and bitching Apple and its products. Tiresome.. aren’t you?
Apple is no longer setting the pace of the smart phone market any more. It’s pretty clear Android is leading that segment of the phone market and Apple is playing catch up at this point.
Tethering and wifi hotspot features were first to come on Android more than a year ago. It’s being rolled out on iOS just recently but only for GSM iPhones. Android’s OS wide voice input was introduced with Froyo (2.2) and there is nothing comparable on iOS. Apple bought Siri almost a year ago and yet there is no sign of OS level integration of speech input capability. Many new Android phones are using dual core arm processors but we probably won’t see this for another three to four months on the iPhone. 3D image and video capture came first on the Android yet it’s not something we’ll see on iOS anytime soon. Android will soon make a big push into NFC (Near Field Communication) this year. It’s not clear if Apple is going to have this capability on the iPhone 5. 4G Android phones will soon be coming out in droves while it’s doubtful that iPhone 5 will do 4G.
Cloud music streaming introduced by Amazon is only on Android at the moment partly because of Apple’s app store policy. Google is definitely working on their own cloud based music streaming service and I doubt Apple will allow that on the iOS so therefore it will be Android only as well. Apple bought Lala on December of 2009 and it fell into a black hole and disappeared. On a side note Apple also bought a mapping company but that also fell into the same black hole.
It looks like Apple is trying to compete against the world but clearly it’s not able to keep up with Android and dozens of large companies building their business on it. The gap between Android and iOS is growing by the day and I just don’t see Apple catching up.
Bingo.
Watch out though, apparently saying this out loud constitutes as trolling.
It isn’t trolling, it’s mostly either factually incorrect or irrelevant. Seriously, the same group of people who poo-poo’d the iPod and claim that the iPad is a fad will continue to complain about how the iPhone doesn’t come with 4G, 256TB of storage, a swiss army knife, this, that or the other thing. And Apple will continue to be the largest mobile device provider in the world, owning over 50% of the profits in that space. (Now someone is going to talk about sheep and cults and act like 10’s of millions of people simply are unable to control themselves and buy Apple’s products due to mind control or some other equally stupid thing).
On the flip side, it is a really good thing that there is strong competition in the phone space. I enjoy the rate of change going on there. I wish that there was a competent competitor to Apple in the tablet space, instead we have the clown car of desperation and failure.
Think maybe Apple understands something that everyone else doesn’t? (There’s a reason Motorola isn’t 100% committed to Android)
Has anyone accused you of trolling? Disagreeing with you is not the same thing, so that comments looks a little petulant.
You’re both cherry-picking features that have only arrived in the last few months. Dual-core CPUs on phones are so new that even the Nexus-S is only single-core, and my work one is barely out of the box.
Amazon’s service is, what, days old and it’s already an example of iOS failure, despite hundreds of thousands of iOS apps or services, some of which presumably don’t exist for Android.
If Apple, as rumoured, release the iPhone 5 with an edge-to-edge Retina display, will Android devices have even managed something like the screen in last year’s iPhone? Some prefer a bigger device with a bigger screen but the Retina Display, for me, is a huge plus for the iPhone.
It seems like you’re only counting the successes on the Android side, but counting iOS’s failures before they’ve even happened.
Chris
Ignorance is bliss.
Follow the Patents, not TechCrunch.
Firstly let me state that I am a huge android fan and while there are some usability issues (for me I find the options to configure stuff impossible to find at times) I find the overall experience better (FOR ME) than iOS based devices.
Now.. I think it’s clear based on Apple’s business success that they would prefer to delay a product than to release something which will come across as haphazard or buggy. Apple users as a general rule hold themselves in pretty high esteem and don’t like their glorified products being tarnished with these ‘bugs’ that people talk about. For example Antenna Gate or whatever it was called, the slow performance on the 3g when going to 4.0 etc. All these, and the responses to these show that apple would prefer to wait for the bugs to be fixed than to go to market. the users benefit and everyone benefits.. Setting the goals high in the apple camp just means that everyone else has to pickup their game to compete.
Now to Android, I’ve been using android for about 1.5 years.. and over that time I’ve seen it transform from a pile of steaming <this is a PG web site lol> to something which has transformed the competition in the mobile space. Having recently used my first honeycomb device I was pleasantly surprised by how much the overall user experienced had improved and hope that some of the features filter back into the mobile phone space soon.. however with the rapid pace of development maintaining two distinct platforms with all the handset vendor customisations is going to be a huge challenge moving forward which at the end of the day is going to either end with poor user experience or carriers basically providing an inferior product to what apple offers (i.e. regular untainted updates, which to me is THE distinction between the platforms unless your a nerd and run a custom rom).