Apple Kills iPhone Nano Rumors; Hints of Legal Battle against Palm?

Apple just posted record revenue of $10.17 billion and record net quarterly profit of $1.61 billion for its fiscal 2009 first quarter ended December 27, 2008.

During the first-quarter earnings call, Apple's No. 2 and acting CEO, Tim Cook made some interesting comments.

The first one was about the rumored iPhone Nano and the other was about the upcoming competition from Palm's smartphone Palm Pre which is dubbed by many as an iPhone Killer.

 

Acting CEO of Apple, Tim Cook seems to have killed the numerous iPhone Nano rumors saying:

"You know us, we're not going to play in the low-end voice phone business. That's not who we are. That's not why we're here. We'll let somebody do that, our goal is not to be the unit share leader in the phone industry. It is to build the best phone."

So we were right when we had reported the rumors of iPhone Nano were more a publicity stunt by the case manufacturers and was highly unlikely.

Tim Cook had this to say regarding iPhone's pricing, :

"We are now in over 70 countries with the iPhone and you're correct, some of them are non-subsidized markets.  Examples are, the largest is in terms of size of the market, our sales are clearly materially less in those markets than they are in the subsidized markets with contracts.  We are constantly evaluating the best way to play in these markets.  We know there's a huge opportunity here, and we will make adjustments in the future there to play in a better way."

When asked about the rising competition from Android, Blackberry, and Palm, Tim Cook warned competitors of legal battle:

"We like competition as long as they don't rip off our IP. And we're going to go after anybody that does."

The analyst asked Tim Cook if he was referring to Palm's Pre as it had features like multi-touch which were similar to the iPhone and something that Apple holds patent on. He replied:

"I don’t want to talk about any specific company. We are ready to suit up and go against anyone. However, we will not stand for having our IP ripped off."

Interesting, we will keep you posted as this story develops.

What's your take?

[via Apple Insider, Gizmodo]

 

 

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