Daily Mail claims iPhone nano ready for Christmas, the rest of us laugh
The Daily Mail (of London) is citing "an industry source" that says Apple will release a £150 (≈$295) "iPhone nano" for O2 pay-as-you-go customers.
The 8GB iPhone 3G is currently on offer for £99 (≈$195), but requires a £30 (≈$59) per month service charge for 18 months.
In the article, the Daily Mail cites an "expert" who says the iPhone nano will include a touch wheel on the back of the handset so numbers can be "dialed" from behind. As much as I love my rotary-dial telephone, not just no, but heck no.
In fact, the seven-sentence, poorly-cited Mail story is little more than linkbait, which is why we're not linking directly to it. The newspaper, from what I understand, is something of a rag in the UK. TechCrunch UK noted that the Mail is going after pageviews, and the crowd that follows Apple rumors would be good for some hits. Shrewd, but crude.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jonathan said 7:09PM on 8-04-2008
Ah, the Daily Mail... it's the Fox News of British newspapers. One of it's more memorable headlines in history was during the 1930s: 'Hurrah for the Blackshirts!' (the Blackshirts, of course, being the British wing of the Nazi Party).
With that in mind, I can comfortably assert that this story is almost certainly utter bollocks and a desperate attempt to - as you point out - get some cheap traffic through their godforsaken website.
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Dan S. said 9:46AM on 8-05-2008
Technically speaking, the Sun is the Fox News of british papers.
Hank Graham said 7:22PM on 8-04-2008
I'm looking forward to the iPhone shuffle, which dials someone randomly when you want to make a phone call, so you can either ask them to pass the word along to whoever you were trying to get in touch with, or just enjoy catching up with people on your contact list you haven't talked to in a while.
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DanielJCooper said 7:24PM on 8-04-2008
Its a 18 month contract not two years
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Tim said 7:32PM on 8-04-2008
[off topic] iphone software 2.0.1 is out folks!
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Garrett Bjerkhoel said 7:33PM on 8-04-2008
I doubt this will happen. All the development is set for a standard width and height, they would make it harder on the developers to do this.
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shaun said 7:40PM on 8-04-2008
The daily mail.....where do I start? It's well known for its right wing agenda (giving it the nickname the Daily Heil), and often hypocritical articles, not to mention sensationalistic journalism.
Thank you for not posting a link, the racist bigoted fools don't deserve any hits
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Matthias said 7:47PM on 8-04-2008
Althought I don't believe anyhing about those rumours, I think that an iPhone nano could be a huge success for Apple: Most users don't want a 60-Dollar-per-month plan, they also don't need mobild internet or GPS. But they will want an iPod included in their phone, and they will want an easy-to-use phone with Mac-like synchronisation of numbers and dates. I don't see any device which serves those basic needs in an acceptable way right now. This device probably wouldn't influence the "classic iPhone" sales, but it would likely cannibalize the iPod sales.
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sonicwind said 8:02PM on 8-04-2008
I heard they were coming out with a new, even bigger phone. It has a real rotary dial, and a chord. And a separate battery you have to wear around your waste.
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ecobore said 5:03AM on 8-05-2008
Seems like a WASTE of energy!!! ;-) or a waste of waist-line!
S said 8:03PM on 8-04-2008
Let me get this straight, the Daily Mail reporting on a poorly-sourced rumor is linkbaiting, but TUAW reporting about the reporting isn't? How the hell does that work? It's not only hypocritical, it's unethical. Steal news from a source, refuse to cite it, then pretend it's some sort of journalistic integrity issue? Wow.
I assume your highly principled stance means you won't be posting links to the NY Times, the Guardian, the Register, or any other publication with obvious biases?
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Robert Palmer said 8:10PM on 8-04-2008
Let me ask you this, and I don't mean it angrily or snarkily -- I just want to hear what you think. Honestly. For my own betterment.
Say you saw this story this morning and discounted it. You looked, saw what it was, and didn't think anything else about it. But over the course of the day, you had 20 or 30 people email you about the story, saying "hey, look at this, it's a new iPhone." If you had an outlet like this, how would you have handled it? Would you continue to ignore writing about the story? How would you have framed it?
S said 11:18PM on 8-04-2008
I would have done everything you did today, I'm sure... until the part where you refused to link to the story because you didn't want to bite on the "linkbait" and give the page (about which you were paid to comment) the traffic. TUAW has every reason to want to post about anything even tangentially Apple-related, and I have no problem with that. However, you used another writer's work to get paid and generate more pageviews without sourcing it so that they could read the original. I think that's unethical.
If we can continue with the implied civil tone, (thank you, by the way) why is it okay for you to write an article about an iPhone nano to generate traffic and profits, but the Daily Mail cannot? This post doesn't even exist without the original article, yet you purposefully withheld a link out of some sense of gatekeeper morality? A quick perusal of the archives show links to Rob Enderle, iSuppli, John Dvorak, Robert Cringely, the Register, et al. None of these sources are particularly reliable or fair-minded, but they deserve the links, especially as your job is to comment on Apple-related rumors that are reported upon by other people. Why should the Daily Mail be any different?
To answer more directly, I would have written an informative and concise summary of the article, linked (sourced!) the original, and written a short, reasoned paragraph about why the claim is complete BS. Looking above, you've done two of those things quite well. The one you missed was the ethical breach.
Simply linking to the original article makes this post an absolutely normal one. Copping a high-and-mighty attitude about the originator of your own linkbait makes it pretty hypocritical.
Robert Palmer said 12:16AM on 8-05-2008
I agree that linking to the article was the ethical thing to do, and I hope you'll forgive me for using this discourse as a method of talking through how I can make better decisions about this in the future. I'm glad that we can take the high road and discuss the conflict -- a conflict that I still have, and am trying to learn from.
It's not to say the original article is hard to find: two of the articles that I link to link back to the Daily Mail's original story. At the same time, I understand your point: who am I to decide what's linkbait and what isn't? I don't claim that title, nor do I particularly want it. It just seemed -- and here's where I probably went wrong -- that obvious linkbait shouldn't be linked to. I would argue that the decision was far from high and mighty in practice, and instead geared to incur the least wrath from the readership at large.
It feels like I had to pick the least wrong of two wrong decisions: either link to the linkbait and send traffic to a story that doesn't merit it, or not link to it and have the situation we have here. Either way, I'm wrong to a certain segment of the readership. I will admit that I feel better about not linking to the story, but that doesn't make it less wrong. It's an interesting dilemma.
In any event, I honestly, truly appreciate you discussing this with me. I hope it doesn't permanently tarnish what little ethical standing I have.
Josh said 7:28AM on 8-05-2008
The issue I have with the writing is the "poorly sourced" article.
How many articles on TUAW come through with "inside sources" or "industry expert" ... quite a few, and that's the nature of reporting on Apple.
Maldaen said 8:43PM on 8-04-2008
They really could market this well, if they wanted to. As was earlier stated, some people just want a phone that can sync to iTunes, maybe check their email via Wi-Fi and see their calendars. They don't want or need mobile internet, or widescreen video and picture viewing. And that would likely also mean either a new segment of the App Store for this device or having an iPhone that can't use applications so as to diversify it from the original iPhone and iPod touch. It could totally work... but this certainly isn't it.
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JoshJoshJosh said 9:54PM on 8-04-2008
I would like one just like the one in the picture (assuming there is no click wheel/rotary dial on the back). It'd have all the features of my iPod and cheap cellphone rolled into one beautiful, easy to use package. Alas, it is but an artist's rendering.
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Maldaen said 11:52PM on 8-04-2008
iPhone "slim" concept art
Sorry, I can't Photoshop that well, but this was my general idea... slim in width and depth, to match the same look of a candybar phone, only less bulky. No GPS, no 3G data, only Wi-Fi. T9 keypad input when vertical, QWERTY input in landscape mode. Still takes photos at the same resolution as the basic iPhone, but lets you crop it to the new screen width while viewing.
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Maldaen said 11:54PM on 8-04-2008
Agh, for some reason, previous post had no link, so here you go:
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a142/maldaen/Picture1-1.png
T.J. Shatner said 12:21AM on 8-05-2008
But surely an entry-level iPhone would need to be feature reduced in some way? How the hell do you cripple the iPhone 3G any more than Apple already did?
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