Apparently Apple has realised that there are huge numbers of people out there who do not want to buy a phone for a thousand dollars when they can be fully satisfied with some cheap Chinese tech.

Bloomberg claims that the company plans to begin production on a cheaper iPhone in February, with an official unveiling coming as early as March. When Apple has done this in the past, the phone has been even more out of date than existing models and still comparatively expensive.

In this case, the handset will be comparable in size to the 4.7-inch iPhone 8 from 2017 and cost $200.

The Nikkei claims that the phone will share most components with the current lineup of iPhones and use a cheaper LCD display to keep the cost low, according to the Japanese paper.

Sales of the iPhone handset, which typically represents about half of Apple's revenue and a large share of its profits, fell 10 percent in the fourth quarter to about $33 billion. The previous quarter, they slid 12 percent.

Even the Tame Apple Press, which has previously praised Apple’s provide less for more money, has started to see the flaw in the plan.

The gods only know what a cheap Apple phone will look like.  Probably two baked bean tins joined by a piece of string with an Apple logo painted on the side.  Later we suspect it will remove the string and claim it is wireless, or sell official Apple string for 100 euro a metre.