Apple Cellphone

scepticsceptic
Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
Given Apple's obvious skill in delivering user-friendly, good looking consumer devices, and its penchant for the "whole widget" approach, it wouldn't suprise me if an Apple cellphone exists somewhere deep in a Cupertino research facility.



I guess the question is when. Personally, I want one now. A flip-phonish design with blackberry lvl of sophistication, a reasonable camera, a sweet interface and really tight integration with my Mac.



It doesn't have to be ground breaking. The iPod won over the masses with its simple, elegant approach to what it does. A cellphone which leveraged Apple's industrial design talents and OS skills could occupy a similar niche.



I want one!
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 27
    ensign pulverensign pulver Posts: 1,193member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Sceptic

    Given Apple's obvious skill in delivering user-friendly, good looking consumer devices, and its penchant for the "whole widget" approach, it wouldn't suprise me if an Apple cellphone exists somewhere deep in a Cupertino research facility.



    Sure, it's the 5G iPod.
  • Reply 2 of 27
    shawkshawk Posts: 116member
    It is possible to build the radio elements of a cel phone in the current remote control. Adding a microphone to the headphone cord would be easy.

    Controls? Voice activated only.
  • Reply 3 of 27
    newnew Posts: 3,244member
    There was one. It was never shipped.
  • Reply 4 of 27
    spillerspiller Posts: 5member
    http://phone.mobile9.com/siemens/sf65/



    This hits the spot stylewise: you could easily imagine the apple logo on the front.
  • Reply 5 of 27
    newnew Posts: 3,244member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Spiller

    http://phone.mobile9.com/siemens/sf65/



    This hits the spot stylewise: you could easily imagine the apple logo on the front.



    No bluetooth...
  • Reply 6 of 27
    kroehlkroehl Posts: 164member
    Here we go again. This pig isn't flying and there will nevah evah be an Apple cellphone.



    Why does this have to resurface every so-many months?
  • Reply 7 of 27
    hardcorehardcore Posts: 22member
    Apple couldn't do better than Danger's HipTop. Well, unless you think a phone should be small and _just_ a phone. Seriously, Danger has Apple-blood running in its veins and while the HipTop 1.0 was good, it suffered from some manufacturing problems. 2.0 is much nicer in that regard and has a speaker-phone function that resolves the screen-on-face issue.



    Danger

    T-Mobile Promo



    PS well, it could do better, but not technically: Danger's relationship with the carriers demands that they keep all your data server-side.
  • Reply 8 of 27
    hasapihasapi Posts: 290member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kroehl

    Here we go again. This pig isn't flying and there will nevah evah be an Apple cellphone.



    Why does this have to resurface every so-many months?



    Because VoIP is going to be huge - Apple is just waiting for the market to mature enough before making the leap.



    Tie in apps such as ichat and a monthly subscription model and you have a business that's 100 times bigger than iTunes.
  • Reply 9 of 27
    onlookeronlooker Posts: 5,252member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kroehl

    Here we go again. This pig isn't flying and there will nevah evah be an Apple cellphone.



    Why does this have to resurface every so-many months?



    I will agree with you, but I said that same thing about an Apple MP3 Player once.
  • Reply 10 of 27
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    The cellphone market is nothing like the MP3 market, currently. Apple would be selling primarily to providers, not directly to consumers.



    Moving to Digital Hub.
  • Reply 11 of 27
    nijiniji Posts: 288member
    apple branded cell fone will never happen. but apple is already doing a great job of working with cell phone manufacturers to achieve excellent integration with OS X.



    here is an example of a mobile that is coming out in early december. it has:



    -bluetooth

    -InfraRed

    -USB

    -1.3 Megapixel camera

    -Sony Duo slot

    -Video Calls (you can look at yr friend or colleague while you talk w/them

    -Dual Mode (WCDMA and GMS9) / Tri-band GMS: 900/1800/1900 (all that means is that it works pretty much anywhere in the world except Romania)



    This V800 is a followup model to SonyEricsson's first 3G model (the z1010).



    take a look a the link for the v800:

    http://www.clubsonyericsson.com/en/products_v800.shtml



    The z1010, which i have right now syncs with my bluetooth mac flawlessly: Addressbook/iCal, wirelessly using bluetooth.



    I can transfer photos from my Powerbook over bluetooth as well.



    mobile fone market is too difficult for apple to make money in. but apple, with its standards based iniatives is working with companies like SE to make sure that other maker's fones do work well with macs.



    thnx
  • Reply 12 of 27
    playmakerplaymaker Posts: 511member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Amorph

    The cellphone market is nothing like the MP3 market, currently. Apple would be selling primarily to providers, not directly to consumers.



    Moving to Digital Hub.



    The problem is the money isnt in the hardware (phones in this case) its in the service which is an interesting situation, quite the opposite of the iPod & iTunes music store . There are several interesting poosbilities here that just need to be explored.
  • Reply 13 of 27
    algolalgol Posts: 833member
    I will say this:



    A very large portion of the cellphones on the market at the moment are shit. The Motorola camera flip phones are the only ones that mildly appeal to me and only the v600 has bluetooth. The user interface on most of these phones is sort of below par, and usually the phones respond slowly to commands. I have an old banged up nokia that looks like it was raped by a panda bear, and thus I was in the market to upgrade it to a new phone. However, I couldn't find anything that I wanted to get. The free ones didn't really elicit any excitement and the expensive ones were too much for too little features. I gave up.... still have my Nokia which I hate. Cause you see, the nokia was shit to begin with and deserved to get raped by panda bears. (no i am not high)



    Anyway, in my opinion all apple would have to do in order to totally trash all the phones currently on the market would be to create a cool design with nice materials with good features for a descent price. A fast CPU, so that one doesn't have to wait for the phone, and a pretty color screen with a cool modern looking interface that is easy to use. Yea motorola has to RAZR V3 coming out but its going to be 750 USD for essentially the same features as the v600. One thing that modern cell phones drastically need is more memory. If they are going to be storing photos and etc and etc they need more than 5MB.



    Now whether apple can make any money in the cell phone market is a whole other question and argument. Apple could get into some cool shit here. If apple could get the major carriers to accept their phone they could cell it through the apple store with an option to pick any carrier that best suits your needs and has the best service in your area. Apple could make it clear to you what the service areas were and all the small detail in the contracts that the providers hide from you ( yes, there is a lot of fine print and hidden charges, at least with cingular) Thus, making the process of deciding on a carrier easier for mr. average joe. Apple could also come up with their own sort of service for their phones. A sort of .mac idea. Email for your phone that has the same address as your .mac mail and access to other things.



    I could go on and on but it is late and i'm sure you guys get the idea. I have no idea whether apple could hook this up, but if they could it would be a seller... Apple could make their money off their service just like the carriers do and sell the phone for a good price. I'd pay 200 for one for sure and 20 a month for the apple service probably.

    You guys think anything of this?
  • Reply 14 of 27
    algolalgol Posts: 833member
    One other idea. Apple could let you download music from their store directly to your cellphone. Imagine: you are in the car and you hear a song on the radio that you like and really want to hear again. You've all had that experience. Fire up that apple phone connect to itunes dl the song, then you can plug the cell phone into the car stereo and listen to it to your hearts content. When you get home bluetooth uploads the song to your computer automatically as well as address book updates and et cetera.



    Now, what about the ipod? well it's simple... the phone is not an MP3 player... it's not going to have some huge ass hard drive. Maybe 128MB or so at the most. The phone wont get mixed up with the ipod at all.



    Why not turn the ipod into a cell phone? Because not everyone wants a cell phone some people just want an iPod. You shouldn't mix the too. Bad idea IMHO.



    Basically apple just offers a cell phone that looks good, works well, and has features that actually set it apart from the other phones. Looking at how well the ipod did one can see that it doesn't take much to work magic if you hit the right market. And I think the cell phone market needs the shot of

    vitamin A.



    Also, if someone happens to have an apple ipod and an apple cellphone... well they are likely to end up with an apple computer as well. RIGHT?????? lol
  • Reply 15 of 27
    danielctulldanielctull Posts: 586member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by niji

    I can transfer photos from my Powerbook over bluetooth as well.



    As can I with my SE K700i. Also it's got a remote control interface meaning I can control the mouse pointer on my PowerBook There is a remote control called mediaplayer, I was hoping this would work with iTunes, but it doesn't seem to. The name made me think WMP when I got it, but it doesn't work with that on my PC either. As far as I can tell, that's probably more to do with WinXP's bluetooth support. I have tried for ages to get my phone to work with my PC, it took 5mins on mac...



    On the Apple mobile phone, it would have to be something special to take me away from Sony Ericsson, at the moment they are making the best designed phones around. Even if the K700 isn't exactly "phone meets camera"...
  • Reply 16 of 27
    algolalgol Posts: 833member
    That is a good looking phone. What service do you use and how much did you have to pay for it? And How good are the pictures it takes... like how many megapixels?
  • Reply 17 of 27
    gregalexandergregalexander Posts: 1,400member
    I'm not sure about an Apple cellular phone. I'd love a simple Apple cordless home phone though, preferably using my Airport network.



    To start this, they could make it possible for people to dial a normal phone from iChat (over the internet), AND receive a normal phone call over iChat. It would then be a small step to make a nice Apple phone that runs iChat as a normal phone.



    Other than that, an Apple-Motorola combo could be interesting. If I remember correctly Motorola isn't using Symbian or Java for their OS so they're a bit 'on their own' with the OS. Quite some space for Apple involvement beyond iTunes on Motorola phones (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004...6motorola.html) (I assume iSync for calendars etc will improve).
  • Reply 18 of 27
    nijiniji Posts: 288member
    GregAlexander: you may be dont know how correct you are!



    the phone that apple could very well lead the way on is one with the following features:



    1. normal mobile, requiring a subscription from ATT or Cingular, etc etc.

    2. but, when you come back to yr house within range of yr airport exrteme wi-fi, or, anywhere there is, for example, a wi-fi network, yr fone can switch automatically to net fone calls. VoIP, maybe IPv6 addressability.



    these phones are now being talked about, as wi-fi grows and companies like vonnage gain momentum.



    motorola, nokia, etc are less inclined to make a fone with these capabilities since their customer (the mobile fone companies) will earn less. however, a computer company, like apple, would be the best to lead the pack on this type of development.



    thnx
  • Reply 19 of 27
    bdonnbdonn Posts: 28member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Spiller

    http://phone.mobile9.com/siemens/sf65/



    This hits the spot stylewise: you could easily imagine the apple logo on the front.



    Wow. Great looking phone. Too bad it doesn't work in North America.
  • Reply 20 of 27
    othelloothello Posts: 1,054member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by GregAlexander

    I'm not sure about an Apple cellular phone. I'd love a simple Apple cordless home phone though, preferably using my Airport network.



    To start this, they could make it possible for people to dial a normal phone from iChat (over the internet), AND receive a normal phone call over iChat. It would then be a small step to make a nice Apple phone that runs iChat as a normal phone.





    i have been talking about wanting one of these from apple for ages



    it connects to your address book (or shared address book under tiger) on your network via airport



    can make ichat voice chats



    it could also feature a small display (either in the handset or the base station/dock it sits in for charging). you can then navigate a la ipod through your address book to make a call. when someone calls you their details are pulled from the address book and displayed, including photo etc.



    connects via itunes for ring tones
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