Fears are growing that the much anticipated iPhone 5 may not be good enough to take on the new generation of Android phones.
"Without Steve Jobs to push through ridiculous sounding ideas that turn out to be winners, they may struggle to be ground-breaking enough," said Mac Buck, editor of App World!, an iPhone App on-line magazine.
Previous innovations on the iPhone, such as high definition displays, easy access to third party applications and the inclusion of GPS, compasses and accelerometers are now taken as standard for smart phones. An attempt to do something different with the Artificially Intelligent Siri in the iPhone 4 proved to be a poor idea, and many think that Apple may have reached the end of the road in their domination of the Smart Phone market.
"Other phone manufacturers, such as Samsung and Nokia are not really innovating," said Buck. "There's seemingly nothing left to innovate when it comes to phones. What they are doing is making what exists better. Faster, clearer, more accessible. The iPhone cannot afford to do this."
Industry experts believe that unless the Jobless Apple can come up with something truly remarkable, many iPhone users will be jumping ship to the quad core processors of the latest Android phones.
"There's more apps available on Android," said Buck. "This is because it costs less to make one. Apple may have got too greedy."
Apple, for its part, are keeping quiet about what will be going into the iPhone 5. Rumours abound of gesture driven phones, or even a radical redesign of the phone itself to make it wearable, with glasses replacing the screen, opening up a new world of augmented reality. Their silence could just be indicative of a lack of ideas, though.
"Whatever they come up with," said Buck, "it'd better be good, or I'll be out of job this time next year, unless Android User need a new editor."
