Waiting for the iPhone 7

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Apr 24, 6:22AM EDT

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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has two important things behind it. The first is earnings from its most recent quarter. The second is enthusiasm about its iPhone 6. The upcoming smartphone’s features, or at least most of them, have already been described by the media. There is nothing left to excite the public on the day of the launch.

The iPhone 5, in its various forms, was the star of Apple’s earnings release. Apple sold 43.7 million of them, which made up over half of the company’s $45.6 million in revenue. The figure was about five million above expectations, and it made investors forget that the sale of 16.4 million iPads was below what Wall Street expected.

Apple | AAPL Price Prediction forecast revenue of $36 billion to $38 billion in the current quarter. That means the iPhone 6 will not be released over the course of the period, or that the release will be late enough as to have little effect on sales.

The press has variously described the iPhone 6 as having a larger screen than earlier versions, as being more expense, carrying a more powerful processor, being thinner, having curved edges and being made of aluminum. Nothing on that list makes it much of a leap forward. As a matter of fact, these features make the iPhone 6 a disappointment for those who thought Apple was about to release a smartphone that would substantially alter the industry. Consumers and investors will have to wait, probably until late 2015 when the iPhone 7 comes out, for a revolution to happen, if it happens then.

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The wish list of new features for future generations of smartphones usually includes an unexpected advance in voice recognition technology, the Apple version of which is Siri. The iPhone 7 would need to drive a car by itself, as well as run all the electronics and appliances of a home, without having to receive special programming in advance. It would have to have ten thousands of apps already installed before purchase, and all of those apps, no matter how advanced, would have to be free. It would need to float and be waterproof. And it would have to be able to change into a pair of glasses in a matter of seconds, retaining all of its smartphone features, and perhaps a few more.

The release of the iPhone 7 is far enough off that the press has not had the chance to speculate about it much. If the speculation is not spectacular, when it comes, Apple will have another disappointment on its hands.

ALSO READ: Apple Recycles Old Products for Free

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.