“On August 3, 2006, the UK’s Mail Online claimed that ‘Apple is about to launch a ‘nano’ version of the hugely successful iPhone. It is expected to be in the shops in time for Christmas.’ The report went on to state that the product would be launched in the UK for pay-as-you-go customers by O2, the mobile phone group owned by Spain’s Telefonica,” Neo reports for MacNN.
“On August 5, 2008, Lehman Brother analyst Ben Reitzes said in a research report that while he believes that Apple is working on a lower-end iPhone form factor, he didn’t think it would arrive until Spring 2009,” Neo reports.
“Yet the UK rumor may still have some legs when you consider that a prominent Apple iPod and iPhone accessories company by the name of Digital Lifestyle Outfitters (DLO) has been working on a nano-styled iPhone dock,” Neo reports.
Full article, with illustration from DLO’s patent application, here.
Sum Jung Gai calls Bullsnit. There’s no way that patent application represents a design of something Apple would produce. Look at that stupid key layout! When Apple patents a key layout, Steve Jobs puts his name on the patent. He’s all over that.
No way. This is just some third party patenting something useless.
Confuscious say when you speak of yourself in the third person you think yourself as important as zune tang
I could be hallucinating, but I seem to remember talk of a ‘nano’ iPhone even before anyone ever saw an iPhone.
Okay, I just realized that:
Sum Jung Gai = Some Young Guy
that’s the phonetic equivalent. All along I thought SJG was the fake CEO of Creative.
I’ve just pulled all the change out of my pockets. It MUST mean an iPhone nano is on the way. What a bunch of horsesh*t!
Looking at the DLO patent image, the formfactor looks far more like a iPod video than an iPod nano. How else is the scrollwheel going to be big enough to allow a keypad within its circumference?
Also Fig2b, which shows the bottom of the device, shows the Dock to be just a tad under 1/3rd the length of the device. That is roughly the width of an iPhone, and not a nano-sized device. Any nano won’t be nano-sized, but nano in functions. Probably only music and phone. Something to compete with a Rokr.
That picture looks like something that Michael Dell would design.
MW: quality, as in, that thing is so NOT quality
It’s less handy, iPhone OSX Ui won’t fit here… It would be sad if not anything else than a joke!
Wouldn’t the phonetic version of “Some Young Guy” be-
Sum yung gy
?
iPhone nano… obvious.
I wonder if they’ve seen any Nano technology over in Roswell.
@Steev,
Sum sounds like Sum or Some
Jung the “J” sounds like “Y” so it sounds like Yung or Young
Gai, the “ai” sounds like a Long “i”, so it would sound like Guy
But no one likes to talk about his brother that’s a little slow, Dim Sum Young Gai.
Wouldn’t that be something; a rotary-dial iPhone!
wow, just wow.
i have to say, that drawing is fugly.
i don’t know, maybe it is real and Apple will make that ugly drawing something drool worthy, but right now i see an ugly design that even if it did work has no reason to exist.
think about it, why do they need this version of the iPhone? what does it do for Apple? for the phone companies? for customers? it looks like the answers are “nothing, nothing, and nothing” from here.
To those that don’t get the Sum Yung Guy joke… you’re too young.
Gai = Gay not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Apple doesn’t stand still. To wit, the iPod mini and nano.
nobody’s mentioned Sum’s two cousins: Tam Pon and Ho Lee Fuk.
I wonder if the Chinese make fun of our names like some of us do of theirs? Just a thought.
I really hope that this isn’t the iTele nano. I wouldn’t be able to teleport with a nano product due to my teletubby shaped body.
@Sir Gill Bates
Good question. But I still dream of moving to Phuket, Thailand.
What a crock of shit. Apple will never sell a device with such a ridiculous keypad design. Apple will never sell a device with a keypad full stop!
So maybe I’m stupid. Explain to me how a 2006 patent by a 3rd party company proves Apple is coming out with a new phone in 2008?
I luv fonetic spelling.
iPhone Nano
Yep I called it long ago, except I also predict a iPhone Pro, larger, more storage, a computer in itself.
Nick Fury,
“Good question. But I still dream of moving to Phuket, Thailand.”
Oh yeah, that’s east of Bumfuk, Egypt.
Oh please! As The firs post said, why would the nano have a keypad. That would be the first thing to go….. That’s kind of what makes the whole interface of the Iphone unique right? If apple is comming out with a Inano phone, Not a bad Idea in marketing concept, I think that would be great. But not with a conventionla keyboard.
If they do it will be for all vendors, not just AT&T;There will be GSM and CDMA versions… so Verizon, Sprint, Virgin Mobile etc and T-mobile can all have a sell Apple stuff. Afterall, it is ONLY a phone.
“Afterall, it is ONLY a phone.”
BLASPHEMY !!!
bullshit
no way
who would want a nano?
its all about the screen,
pointless I say
Here’s what’s going to happen:
Apple is going to release a multi-touch PDA that is larger than the iPod/iPod Touch but with a slightly smaller screen than that with a 13″ MacBook. This will either run a full-blown Mac OS X (ala Leopard and later), or be an outright replacement for the iPod Touch and run the same OS X Mobile OS. In either case, this nano iPhone will be intended to be allowed to tether to this new device (or to existing iPod Touch if they continues as-is in this form factor) or serve as a more conventional cell phone with limited features.
As I see it, the existing iPod is facing retirement. And for people who need the larger storage capacities of the iPod Classic (or even the new iPod Touch 32Gb model), it makes no sense to have and tote the existing iPhone models and an iPod Touch (assuming it or something similar does completely replace the iPod Classic). Give me an iPod Touch with 32 Gb or more in storage (or better yet, a 12″ multi-touch Mac/PDA) and a “nano” iPhone that it can tether to, and I’ll have all I need.
I’m holding out for an iPhone Extreme, personally. I also think it’s a damn shame Steve never put to market that 1st gen iPod with the old fashioned dialing wheel.
Think of the cool factor! Although it would take five minutes to dial the number – you’d do so in style!
@ Sir Bill Gates
“I wonder if the Chinese make fun of our names like some of us do of theirs? Just a thought.”
I’m no Chinese, but I am Asian (we’re made up of more than just Chinese, in case many of you don’t know. They’re just the most “obvious” at the moment).
But make fun of your names? Nooo…never!
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MacSheikh,
“I’m no Chinese, but I am Asian (we’re made up of more than just Chinese”
Darn right you are. That whole Asian classification is rigged. You guys darn near got everybody. Russia? What the hell! Why aren’t they considered Europe?
Oh, and I believe you about the name thing. I really do.
Hey, Can the Iphone connect to the web so that I can watch theBeijing Olympics Complete Medal Tally 2008 when Im at work?