I think many people, no matter how they feel about Apple or its products, will agree that Steve Jobs was one of the most influential people in all of the technology industry.
Jobs was a driving force at Apple and was very much hands-on when it came to working on the company’s products and pushing for groundbreaking devices.
It has been assumed by some that with Jobs’ untimely demise, the iPhone 5 was the last product that had Steve’s fingerprints on it. However, that may not be the case.
Apple government liaison officer Michael Foulkes recently sat down with the San Francisco Examiner to talk about device kill switch technology, which could be used to allow smartphone owners to remotely disable their handset if it is lost or stolen.
During the interview, Foulkes reportedly let it slip that the development of the next two generations of iPhones precede current Apple CEO Tim Cook. That remark clearly indicates that the late Steve Jobs worked on the next two generations of iPhone smartphones, the first of which (iPhone 5S) is expected to tip up this summer.
There has been a lot of speculation in the technology industry that Apple could lose some of its competitive edge with Cook at the helm. Some of those fears could be set aside if Jobs did have a hand in designing the upcoming iPhone models. One of the rumors that continues to swirl is that Apple is working on a cheaper version of the iPhone for budget conscious shoppers and developing markets.
Some have continued to believe that Jobs wouldn’t have favored a lower cost iPhone because he historically referred performance and functionality over price concerns. If a lower cost iPhone launches and Jobs had a hand in the product design it could change the opinions of some in the industry.
While Apple has yet to detail official specs for the upcoming handset, reports indicate the iPhone 5S will boast a Super HD display, a higher-end processor, 12-megapixel camera, a fingerprint sensor, near-field communications support (NFC) and perhaps even wireless charging.
The iPhone 5S is expected to weigh in (with contract) at $199 for the 16GB model, $299 for the 32GB model and $399 for 64GB. Meanwhile, the iPad 5 could start at $499 for the 16GB model, scaling up to $599 and $699 for the other two models.
