FORTUNE — As far as Apple news goes, the last week has been rife with reports from The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg that the company is developing a new, cheaper iPhone. (Certainly, it’s something we advocated for.) But now, Apple SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller has gone on the record as saying that such a device “will never be the future of Apple products.”
Interviewed by Chinese newspaper Shanghai Evening News, and translated by The Next Web, Schiller nixes the idea, stating that doing so would be contradictory to the company’s uncompromising design philosophy. “Every product that Apple creates, we consider using only the best technology available,” he explained. “This includes the production pipeline, the Retina display, the unibody design, to provide the best product to the market.” Schiller further said that even though Apple’s (AAPL) market share may hover around 20% currently, the company owns a whopping 75% of the profit.
As The Next Web points out, Schiller doesn’t drill down into specifics, just that a “cheap smartphone” will never be the future of Apple products. That still leaves room for interpretation. Schiller suggests a “cheap smartphone” by nature is an poor, inferior product — one Apple doesn’t make. A new iPhone with a somewhat lower price target, just like the iPad mini before it, could still be in development over at Cupertino and very well see the light of day so long as it adheres to Apple’s high standards.
