New iPhone 5 (or iPhone 4.5) Version to Cost $200 Off Contract; Release Date Not Shared Yet

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Someone, somewhere has turned on again the crazy Apple rumor mill and after the iPad 3 speculations we saw earlier today we’re now in for an iPhone nano rumor rejuvenation. Don’t get me wrong, Apple may very well launch a new iPad 3 later in fall, and I showed you a few reasons why that’s pretty plausible, but will the company also launch a cheaper iPhone 5? Or should we call it an iPhone 4.5?

Bloomberg reports today that Apple is thinking about introducing a smaller iPhone that would fight its archenemy, which right now is Google. The new device would sell for $200 off contract, and that would be a great price for an Apple smartphone or for a new Apple product anyway. But is it really the Apple thing to do?

A $200 iPhone that would sell off contract would certainly be very budget-friendly for some, but would it still manage to be a top-notch smartphone? Would Apple compromise on iPhone performance by introducing such a device? Are we looking at the slow birth of iOS fragmentation? On the other hand a smaller iPhone 5 could be a lot more powerful than the iPhone 3GS considering what we’ve just seen on stage from HP the other day.

Bloomberg says the new iPhone 4 / 4.5 / 5 would be a third smaller than the current iPhone 4 and would use plenty of its current specs although, naturally, we don’t have any specifics.

From a different perspective there are a lot of $200 off-contract iPhones out there. We like to call them iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS versions that sell for that much all around the world. The iPhone (and that would apply to some of the high-end Android handsets out there) is not a phone you throw away after you’re done using it. You sell it to someone that doesn’t want the new iPhone as you upgrade to the next-gen device.

What say you, iPhone customers and potential customers? Would you like to be able to buy an iPhone 5 nano later this year? One that would look very much like the new HP Veer?

And by the way, would such a small touchscreen display require any special finger sanding in order to be able to use it? Let us hear your thoughts in the comments section!