The old non-unibody MacBooks had horrific cracking, remember my friend had to replace his keyboard section twice due to it!
I think this signifies the end of the iPhone 4 and 4S, my guess is that they will be replaced with the 'low cost' iPhone at the 4's price point.
I doubt Apple would sacrifice the screen quality, it will still be a premium product.
The unibody Macbook's did have bad cracking issues, but you're talking about an all-plastic laptop vs. a smartphone, which is a smaller, single piece of plastic. Plus a lot of that cracking was because of pressure of resting your wrists on the keyboard while typing, and the plastic would constantly flex a little bit. Many plastic Macbooks did develop cracks over time, but you're also talking about a life cycle of 3-6 years, versus 1-2 on a smartphone generally. The iPhone 3GS didn't have spontaneous cracking issues (though it could be accelerated by dropping it!).
I hope they move to a flagship device/cheaper plastic device that's still up to spec.
I get so annoyed having to buy iPhone 4's at work because they are free on contract when they're just SOOOO old. I mean, no one in their right mind in management would buy a three year old Android device, but a three year old iPhone is just A-OK!
It would just be really nice to always have the free-on-contract iPhone be a year behind the current flagship, spec-wise.
Agreed, and I think this is the point behind the 5C. The iPhone 4 is ANCIENT by today's standard (not even a dual core CPU!, and the camera is garbage). I think the point of a 5C is to address that market, and also unify Apple's devices at one fixed aspect ratio. Much like Apple did to rush the ipad 4 to market so that their lineup phased out the old connector in favor of Lightning, I think the '5C' would unify Apple's phones at 16:9. It would also be a boon for contract-free purchasers, and also global sales.
The A5 is a great chip for a free phone. Most people don't need more than that. And if they call it "pro" they'll have to fix the security holes and put it on a level of robustness similar to the old Blackberry.
I couldn't disagree with you more about the A5, and I strongly suspect the 5C will basically be an iPhone 5/iPhone 5-lite under the hood, with an A6 SoC. You're talking about an SoC that saw its debut in late 2011 possibly powering a phone that will sold in 2013-2014? That's a stretch. Also, remember, the iPhone 5 is getting a bump as well with the 5S this fall.
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The A5
is a great SoC for a
free phone. It's also great for a $100-150 device. However this phone is reportedly going to cost around $375-450. Free on contract doesn't mean free. Yes many buyers in the US/Canada will get this phone with a contract, possibly free, but for the rest of the world, and for the prepaid market, this is basically Apple's Nexus 4, meaning more customers are going to see that full phone sticker price up front.
The A5 was great in 2012 for lower-end devices. It's acceptable for driving the pathetic 1024x768 screen in the iPad mini. However, with iOS 7 on the horizon, with all of its transparency and GPU rendering, I don't think the A5 is appropriate for a brand new phone. Cortex A9 is an absolutely dated CPU architecture in today's market, especially since most new Android flagships are coming with beefy quad core CPU's. Also, Cortex A9's low power characteristics are worse than Swift/A6. Battery life is paramount for apple. Plus you're talking about a mere 37% increase in die size to go from A5 (crummy 2011-gen tech) to A6:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6330/the-iphone-5-review/4
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For all those reasons, I seriously doubt that an iPhone 5C will have A5 under the hood. I think that putting an A5 into an iPhone 5C would be an act of extreme hubris on Apple's part. I'm not saying that's impossible (just look at the screen of the iPad mini!), but it would be a seriously myopic choice on Apple's part. Think about it, Qualcomm's S4 (Krait 200) from last year, such as in the Galaxy S III is better across the board than A5. That part has already essentially been replaced.
For all we know, the iPhone 5S could very well come with an A7 chip too (though it could also just have a reworked A6, or possibly a quad-core version). Meaning A5 suddenly becomes 2 generations old, which is a no-no for a brand new product.