Apple made a new phone with a few inches of extra screen and a new processor because that's what they needed to make their phone better. No reason to start attaching gimmicks for the sake of being a little different.
Since then, every couple of years a company introduces a new one and usually sells a few hundred and discontinues it.
A projector phone might be like a construction company owning a full-sized truck, but it might also be like a construction company buying a Toyota Prius with a builtin dumpster attachment
I'll be curious if all the Apple fan boy's retract what they say when the iPhone gets a projector added to it. I suspect they'll argue the: "The market it ready for it now!" line :P
Who cares? Apple will release what makes them tons of money; that is just how they work. If they can fit it into a good product, they won't care what Apple fan boys or Apple haters said in the past, its completely irrelevant to them.
I didn't mean, what will apple think of fan boys or haters. I was questioning the consistency of view of the fan boys, of course its rather moot, as fan boys are of course not consistent at the level of discussion, but instead company.
Apple don't release things that make them tons of money, they market things that make them tons of money. It was pretty clear the iPod (1st generation) was not a fantastic product, but Apple marketed the crap out of it, to the point it would seem like the only option to some people.
The iPod V1 was a great product back then, unless you are reinforcing Cowboy Neal's position that it was lame compared to a Nomad? Also, Apple spends very little money on marketing, and that was especially true back then. Apple's recipe for success has been to package the right technology at the right time into a package that is very well designed. Those who attribute their success to fanboyism or marketing are just deluding themselves with bias.
I don't think there are many examples of products that were perfect on the first attempt to make them, or even the first few goes. Projector phones might seem compromised now, but if some company thinks hard enough about them, we might get something really nice. It won't be innovative, but it will be refined.