July 11th, 2007
Did Apple paranoia scare off Morgan report about Nano iPhone?
This could be one of my sideways-thinking hunches, but follow along with me here.
First, the blogosphere pantingly follows along with a Reuters story tying to a JP Morgan report by Taiwan-based analyst Kevin Chang. Taiwan, incidentally, is a center for mobile device chip making, so analysts there might be presumed to be clued-in.
The report cited a newly published Apple patent application, and then combined it with illustrations that look like a Nano-form-factored- iPhone is on the way and might be here by the end of this year.
Look. The Patent app claims in Paragraphs 64 and 65 that:
The invention pertains to a user interface for controlling an electronic device, particularly a multifunctional electronic device that is capable of operating in multiple modes as for example a phone mode for communications and a media player mode for playing audio files, video files, and the like.
In accordance with one aspect of the invention, the user interface includes a configurable input region for navigating, making selections and initiating commands with respect to the electronic device. The input region is configured to adjust its input areas based on mode so that the inputs being provided match the current mode of the electronic device. The input region may be widely varied and may include a touch or proximity sensing area that generates signals for one or more of the operations mentioned above when an object is positioned over a sensing surface. The sensing area is typically mapped according to mode of the electronic device.
Note the phone number display in the screen cap at the top of this post, the “transmit” notification to the right of the phone number, as well as the Patent application literature’s technical references to “phone mode for communications,” “media player for playing audio files, video files…”
Sounds somewhat indicative of Nano-like iPhone to me. But not indicative enough, apparently, for three other Morgan analysts fiercely refuted the initial report, claiming unnamed “supply channel” sources as part of the documentation for a Nano-like iPhone.
And now the blogosphere- much of whom is skeptical about Patent revelations to begin with- is giving a collective “nah nah told you so” to Morgan for exhibiting the carelessness to issue such a report in the first place.
I, for one, smell kind of a rat here. I’ve seen analyst reports issued with far less information than Chang had. And while the GUIs don’t match, there are some functionalities in the Apple patent that could be grafted onto a Nano shell.
You have to realize, analysts at the same company rarely if ever controvert each other in this manner.
I am thiinking Chang got it right, but the “by Christmas” availability claim for this new device provided the skeptics and the intimidatable with enough ammo to refute Chang’s claims.
Could there be something to Chang’s original report, and Morgan frantically recast the report at the behest of privacy-obsessed, litigious executive team and its lawyers?
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
