iPhone 4 and iOS4 – This is why Apple is genius.

When Apple released the original iPhone in January of 2007 they knew exactly what they were doing. They knew where the device would be in three years. The original had a 2 megapixel camera, no flash, impossible to take photos in low light situations, no multitasking capabilities. The 3G model seemed to have have some hardware upgrades, updates to motion sensing but it was more of an iPhone 1.5 than an iPhone 2. The 3GS is where the real marketing genius starts becoming more apparent. Again, the 3GS appeared at the time to be more of what the 3G should have been, making it the iPhone 2, instead of a true 3rd generation device. At this point we still have no flash and no multitasking, however we did get an upgrade on RAM to 256mb and upgraded processing power, but overall the general consensus was that there was not much of a difference.

Now, we have the iPhone 4 and the new iOS4. The iOS4 is the new Operating System shipped with the iPhone 4, and it became available to all previous iPhone 3G and 3GS users  (as well as the iPod Touch) today. Right about now you're probably asking me to get to the point. Well here's the marketing genius of it all; Multitasking will only be available to 3GS and iPhone 4 users. Now we understand why they would release the 3GS with upgraded processing power, but very little noticeable difference. 3G and all previous versions of the iPhone will be discontinued. Not only has the release of the iPhone 4 driven sales for brand new devices, it has also driven sales of the 3GS, which will soon be the only previous generation iPhone available. Can't afford an iPhone 4? The 3GS will soon be $99, and it multitasks! (finally) There has been absolutely no reason for them to give us a flash or multitasking until now. The big competition is the Droid Incredible, and the new iPhone has all of the same features as Verizons new devices, and more. 

I'm calling it now. iPhone 5; Expandable memory.

There are a ton more differences between the 3GS and the iPhone 4, I have only touched on a couple of them to point out that Apple had a very in depth and layed out marketing strategy. Check out the following videos to learn more.