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Apple working on half-price iPhone, personal cloud


Mobile Me service could be made free, with a move toward storing songs and other content on the internet rather than your phone.

NBR staff
Mon, 14 Feb 2011

As Apple fans wait for the all-singing, all dancing iPhone 5 to arrive (it's thought to be due around June), The Wall Street Journal has reported that the company is working on a parallel project: a half-price iPhone.

NBR takes this rumour with a grain of salt. Almost every year, gossip spreads about a so-called iPhone for the masses. Now, admittedly, things are a bit more pressing as Google's Android OS begins to appear on relatively cheap phones.

Mobile Me to go free?
More intriguing is a second rumour picked up on by the Journal, which is not necessarily tied to a budget iPhone (beyond the fact the budget model would presumably have a lot less memory, so lend itself to online storage).

A well-placed insider holds that Mobile Me - Apple's online storage and synching service - would be made free (currently it costs $US99 to US149; it's available to Kiwis, but charged to all-comers in US currency).

The result could be to popularise a "personal cloud" service, or the ability to store most, or all, of your music, photos, movies and other iPhone/iTunes content on the internet, streaming it to your device as required.

Your correspondent - who recently had to repurchase a bunch of songs after losing them and failing to back-up - rather likes the convenience, and safety, of such online storage, but does shudder at the potential data charges, if syching is done on the move.

One possible motivation for the push (assuming there is one): Nokia (with Ovi) and its new friend Microsoft (with Windows Phone 7 and its various Live service tie-ins) are already pushing personal cloud features.

NBR staff
Mon, 14 Feb 2011
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Apple working on half-price iPhone, personal cloud
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