American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu says that Apple is being pressured by the market to begin making cheaper iPhone versions. The iPhone, which will come on June 29, is priced at $499 for the 4GB and $599 for the 8GB. “Apple needs to round out its iPhone product line at lower price points (similar to iPod) if it expects to replicate the success of its iPod with sales of 100 million units,” Wu said. Last month, it was rumored that iPhone is working on a cheaper, smaller and non-touch screen version of the iPhone. Wu summed up what he thinks is iPhones market advantage: “We believe one overlooked advantage iPhone may have over other smartphones is that when making calls, its virtual dialer has no extra clutter, and it is likely easier to dial unprogrammed phone numbers than on fixed QWERTY keyboards.”

[via gmp3, article]