Ben's Talk3G Blog

Eleven long months have passed by since Steve Jobs announced iPhone 4 at WWDC. In past years we would now be feverishly awaiting Apple's next incarnation of the popularly-dubbed "Jesus phone", and yet curiously, despite far-intensified competition, all appears quiet from Cupertino, California at this familiar time of rumour and speculation.

To find out why, we have to remind ourselves what, exactly, Apple unleashed upon the world last year.

iPhone 4 was a colossal upgrade over the iPhone 3GS. They improved pretty much everything. Screen resolution: doubled. RAM: doubled. Camera sensor: well, nearly doubled. We got goodies like a 3-axis gyro, hardware noise cancellation, and Apple's custom-designed A4 processor. All this crammed into an impossibly thin enclosure sandwiched between not one, but two pieces of glass, bound in a metal frame. Plastic and chrome be gone.

Fast-forward to today, and what's on the scene from the competition? The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play and Arc have arrived, we've got the Samsung Nexus S, the HTC Desire HD etc... yet all these are just shells to host Google's Android OS - with the exception of the Play's gamepad they're all a bit dull, certainly not iconic masterpieces slavered in glass like the iPhone 4. There's the odd dual-core mobile phone out, and even a 3D one, but the competition is yet to demonstrate how either is actually useful right now.

In my view the iPhone 4 host is still technically sound. It boasts substantially more grunt than iOS 4.x requires and, perhaps in part due to the competition's inability to copy the look of this generation of iPhone quite as well as they did with the iPhone 3G/S, still looks remarkably shiny and new. I think one thing we can all agree on, however, is that iOS itself needs an overhaul. Surprise surprise, that's what Apple are rumoured to be doing right now - bringing us iOS 5 in about a month's time.

So, no iPhone 4S is required this time around. Apple set the bar so high that it seems few manufacturers could be bothered to meet it yet alone best it when the overall package is considered. And so the iPhone 4 will receive not one, but two lifelines that should see it become one of the most-sold single handsets of all time - perhaps the most-sold single smartphone?

White iPhone 4: It seems unthinkable, but just this alternative colour, supposed to be available from the start, will give a substantial boost to iPhone 4 sales. The timing couldn't have been better if it had been planned from the start. But before you write this off as madness, I myself, though a cruel twist of fate, have the white model and it's absolutely gorgeous! To my amazement Bumpers actually look good this time around, and so despite getting one for free before due to antennagate I actually shelled out an insane £26 for a blue one! So yes, I can see why this one's going to sell.

iOS 5: Then comes the next bump, just in time to catch subsiding sales of the white iPhone 4 in a couple of months. I see no reason why Apple need wait for iPhone 5 to release iOS 5 when a new handset is going to provide a plentiful bump in sales as it is. No, better to have separate iOS and handset release schedules to smooth out revenue. With sufficient new features (such as the rumoured iCloud) the iPhone 4 becomes new all over again. Existing customers are encouraged to stay, while the Apple media machine has plenty of new fodder for adverts and such to ensure sales pick up. It's all a little masterstroke of genius that sees the iPhone 4 go on, and on, and on.

But as good as all this sounds, especially for existing iPhone 4 owners who aren't being left in the dirt quite as quickly as they have been when buying previous models, iPhone 5 must, eventually, come. But now Apple finds itself in quite the predicament. iPhone 4 successfully defined the 2010/2011 smartphone. It was not toppled, as their sales only second to Nokia's entire portfolio of smartphones confirm. Now, or soon I should say, Apple must again roll the dice and unveil to the world its vision of the smartphone for 2012. That's a big ask.

Other manufacturers push out handsets like cookies these days, and yes I'm looking at you HTC. Sure, nowhere near as much skill goes into the baking as it does for an Apple product, but each device isn't an all-eggs-in-one-basket affair, and they can essentially cover all the bases and follow up on new consumer trends very rapidly. Software permitting.

Quite how Apple will manage to have another iPhone 4 sized smash hit eludes me. I just feel that one of these days they're going to get it horribly wrong, and all the gains they've made will be swept away in the blink of an eye. Yes, lessons must have been learnt from iPhone 4's antenna problems and fragility, but Steve Jobs is no longer the dynamo within the corporation and without his inconceivably talented and critical eye the risks of faltering can be only amplified.

The smartphone today is exactly what Apple created it to be. They killed Symbian. They actually put the nails in the coffin of the worlds biggest smartphone operating system by a country mile and sent Nokia, whose sales just fell of a cliff, running into the arms of Microsoft - historically awful at mobile OSs. But can they continue to define the smartphone in the face of such overwhelming competition, and far greater sales volumes from Google Android?

For now, at least, we don't have to concern ourselves. iPhone 4 is still the one to beat, and if you want the white one and can justify the cost I have no reservations in recommending it.