Apple's new 4-inch iPhone is not a big deal

Is going small really going big?

Earlier this week, Apple showed of a new iPhone and this should not to be mistaken for the iPhone 7, we will probably only see that towards the end of the year. This new iPhone announced during Apple's first launch of 2016 is the spiritual successor to the iPhone 5S. With just a measly 4-inch display, you should not belittle this small iPhone as it packs the same punch as an iPhone 6S. Apple managed to engineer their flagship A9 SoC into the new iPhone SE which provides this small phone the power to shoot 4K video and also enough horsepower to get blazingly high scores on AnTuTu.

What Apple experts say about the 12.9-inch iPad Pro — " The problem with the iPad is that you only need one iPad because you can get the same app experience on both the mini and the Air, the only difference is the screen size. But that might very well change with the iPad Pro, it is still indefinitely just a bigger iPad " Continue reading.

But is that what the industry needs, Apple seems to be convinced that there is a request for such a small device in today's world. Tim Cook is saying that up to 60% of people are asking (and begging) for a 4-inch iPhone and the iPhone SE is the answer. Just remember that Apple notoriously made small phones for a couple of years when the rest of the industry went over to bigger screens. For years, Apple's iPhone model is to basically downgrade the previous flagship in terms of pricing and provide the lineup with multiple price tiers. With the iPhone SE, Apple is making it the most affordable iPhone option that starts at just $399 for the 16GB model.

But the question is why would you want to buy the iPhone SE, 4-inches is real small. And no, the SE on iPhone SE does not stand for 'stupid edition'

Phil Schiller just told me the “SE” stands for “Special Edition” @FortuneTech

— Jason Cipriani (@MrCippy) March 21, 2016

Is Windows Phone 7 happening all over again

Déjà vu

It's over for Microsoft, I have somewhat lost faith on the company with this week's announcement mainly because it has happened all over me. Earlier this week, Microsoft (finally) announced the official Windows 10 Mobile upgrade for existing Windows Phone devices. Alongside that announcement is a list of devices that are able to upgrade to the brand new software. That sounds pretty reasonable and all but when Windows 10 Mobile was initially announced last year, Microsoft promised that all Lumia devices running WP8.1 will be promised a brand new software experience. But after multiple delays in releasing this update and several problems along the way in terms of bugs and performance, Microsoft has just pulled the life plug out of nearly half  of the Windows Phone devices currently in the market

@Kalars07 We plan to upgrade all Windows Phone 8 devices to Windows 10 in the future :)

— Lumia (@Lumia) November 13, 2014

If you look at the list of fully supported Windows 10 Mobile devices that Microsoft is touting, devices only include a couple of mid-high end Nokia branded phones released after 2014 and to no surprise, all Microsoft branded Windows Phone devices will be getting the Windows 10 Mobile update right from the first Lumia 535 all the way to the Lumia 435. While my beloved Lumia 630 and Lumia 1020 will not be getting the official Windows 10 Mobile update, I am not particularly bummed out of this but I do feel what Windows Phone 7 users felt when Nokia said that Windows Phone 8 will not be coming to any existing devices like the Lumia 900 or Lumia 610.

Windows Phone right now is in a deadly state if you think that market performance is based on the percentage that OS fills up compared to others, Windows Phone is basically a dead platform. With a mere 1.7% market share as of today, that number is not likely to improve as Windows Phone sales are not going up and the fact that iPhone and Android phone sales are continuing to go off the roof with the release of a brand new phone every year.

The Mobile World Congress Battle

Battle royale

At this point, it feels like the same old battle is going to happen once again. Samsung is poised to come up on top of their game and LG is going to gain some ground but not significantly and Sony is once again playing the curve ball again with their new smartphone. Mobile World Congress 2016 saw the debut of several key flagship smartphone that will determine what goes on this year and probably the most surprising one is from Xiaomi which is a first for them to have a big launch outside of China (and also India). Their new Xiaomi Mi 5 was announced on a global stage but you'll be forgiven if you're still yearning to get the rock bottom china prices outside of Asia.

Once again this year, it looks like there will be a pretty clear winner as to who will top the market and Samsung is poised to top the market with their new Galaxy S7 edge and Galaxy S7. I am not trying to be a Samsung fanboy here but in my opinion, Samsung does have the edge (no pun intended) to triumph over the LG G5 due to Samsung's massive market reach in various countries. Like take for example Malaysia, LG doesn't always launch their phones in a timely matter in the region but Samsung is (always) most certainly launching their flagship in our market. But, the technology industry is not that predictable and LG might (by a small chance) have better sales performance compared to Samsung.