AT&T Marketing Strategy Indicates Next-Gen iPhone Could Be Called "4G"
May 6, 2011
Since time immemorial (read, "2008"), man has, with each impending refresh, debated the potential hot new names for Apple's certain hot new iDevices.
We are in such an era right now.
With the upcoming unveiling of the next-generation iPhone, speculation is running wild regarding the name to be bestown upon it. iPhone 4G? iPhone 4S? iPhone 4GS? iPhone 5? iPhone SomethingElseEntirely?
We don't know (and won't know) until Apple tells us, but some conspiracy theorists have noticed some promoted half-truths coming out of AT&T's marketing department about what exactly constitutes cellular "4G" speed.
Says Chris Ziegler,
We’re well past the dream of saving the term “4G” to describe 100Mbps mobile networks, which was the original intent laid out by the UN’s International Telecommunication Union early in the last decade. We’re also well past saving it for LTE and WiMAX... But I’ve realized today that the term has reached new levels of irrelevance, because [At&T and T-Mobile are] not even saving it to describe the full capabilities of their newly-upgraded HSPA+ networks.The takeaway from this line of product-designation is simple: "4G" no longer means "4G," nor does it even mean the slower 21 Mbps HSPA+. No, "4G" now means anything in the ballpark of 14.4 Mbps transfer capability. Or, you know, "3G." The Qualcomm chips in Apple's current iDevice lineup feature the hardware to operate at these speeds already. And it isn't a stretch to think they'll just call the new iPhone the "iPhone 4G." Maybe that means next year's model will be called "iPhone LTE." After all, if they call it "iPhone 5" and keep increasing the digit by one every year, soon we're going to have "iPhone 11" and "iPhone 12." That just sounds plain bad. I say ditch the numbers altogether. All anyone would need to know is that an iPhone is an iPhone, and the newer one is better.
