Apples budget iPhone is about screen control, not cash

The “cheap” iPhone isn’t actually about being cheap at all: it’s about retiring the 3.5-inch screen. Applehas a long-running love of standardization, and with good reason. The company built the iPad mini around a display size, aspect, and most importantly resolution that allowed the greatest parity – and the fewest developer headaches – with the existing, full-sized iPad, after all. It’s not just in the name of control-freak tyranny, either: the iPad mini came out the gate with a full catalog of compatible apps, which is more than the Nexus 7 could claim.

Soon, Apple will announce a new iPhone, and the range of phones it has on sale will shift again. All signs point to it being the “iPhone 5S“, though no matter the name, we’re expecting the current iPhone 5 to slip down a tier and become the mid-range option. That would, if Apple was true to previous form, leave the iPhone 4S to take up the iPhone 4′s position as the “entry-level” handset, free-with-agreement.

Thing is, the iPhone 4S has a 3.5-inch screen – a leftover of the old design – while the iPhone 5 and 5S are going to use the newer 4-inch Retina. The 4S is also not the cheapest to make, and there’s a good reason Apple switched from the precarious glass casing of that generation to the sturdier metal of the iPhone 5.

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