Apple and Motorola on track to intro iTunes-ready phone - Page 2

I guess maybe I should be excited about this but I am not.

Apple needs to concentrate on a new device for the home and not worry about a market with about 1 billion different phones.

I can go with iTunes mobile. Makes sense.

The last thing they need to do is get in the cell phone business IMO.

Yeah, that's true.

I was trying to point out that, at least in Britain, the cellphone market is very much geared against just selling you a phone... but there are a load of obvious workaround that everyone knows about. I think we're agreeing on the issue really - certainly if Apple did that my card would be out!

Amorya

8)

I hope it will be below 300 dollars. the thing is also, i already have a T610, and I am not really very happy with buying a GSM mobile, and the 3G phones available at the moment are not that exciting. Only Ericsson's work with iSync, and Z1010 is too big, the other one V800 is only for Vodaphone... so no real choices so far.

This is a video of the Moto Media Mania event where Steve Jobs spoke about the Moto-Apple partnership.

http://homepage.mac.com/rcpm/iMovieTheater6.html

It'll be interesting to find out exactly who's designing this phone.

Jobs isn't the kind of person to leave design decisions to another company if there's an Apple logo on the product.
This is, after all, the same guy who's picked out colours for the interface elements in some of the company's software.

And he's also admitted that Apple designed but never released a PDA.

While the first phone in this alliance will likely center around iTunes capabilities and have no QWERTY pad, could the next version see Apple in the Smartphone business taking on the Treo 650?

Could this be why Palm is preparing to torpedo Mac support in its future products?

Once and for all, he did not say that, and curse Kasper for propagating that persistent myth.

The first gen, second gen and third and fourth gen iPods do not suck. Motorola phones have a habit of lacking features that sony put on theirs. We'll have to wait and see though

Thank you john. I've been battling the 'finished but unreleased PDA' myth for a while too.

Back on topic:

It's interesting that Apple is getting involved in the feature-list mongering gadget game. Normally, their products differ significantly from these, focusing more on key features than on having the longest list. Thus... I wonder what kind of influence apple will have on these phones.

Can someone point out to me where it says Apple are doing more than just co-developing an iTunes mobile application for Motorola phones?

Seems like everyone thinks that Apple is getting in on the hardware side of things but I just don't buy it.

That is what everyone is speculating about... just what involvement does apple have?

Precisely.

How we get from Apple making a version of iTunes called "iTunes Mobile Music" for Motorola phones, to "Apple and Motorola could soon introduce the mobile phone the two companies are developing to play music" is beyond me.

Based on all the public announcements I've seen, it is not specific hardware, but merely software. Eddy Cue, oft quoted, is vice president in charge of applications at Apple, not hardware. His generalities morph magically into specifics at the hands of the Forbes reporter.


Cue is speaking in general. In general, if Apple wanted iTunes on a cell phone, "it has to be a phone in the middle-tier of the market, not a $500-tier phone. It has to be very seamless to use. And we're very happy with the results.".

Cue is jumping from 1. talking about the price range of phones (of any maker's phones, initially) that "iTunes Mobile Music" would need to work on, then 2. how the iTunes-on-a-cell-phone experience would need to be to meet Apple's standards, then to 3. how well the "iTunes Mobile Music" application is working on the Motorola phone or phones it is initially being developed for.

Yet all this is mangled by the reporter into meaning "the phone".

That Motorola might also be making more multimedia savvy phones at the same time is not a surprise and would be happening regardless of the Apple partnership. But this does not mean they are making an iPhone.

Don't expect Jonathan Ive to be unveiling a beautiful new iPhone anytime soon kiddies.

Yes, there will likely also be a nice new Motorola phone or series, hyped to the max, that will be the first to be able to run the "iTunes Mobile Music" application, but the goal is getting the software on the middle-tier Motorola phones, not merely to introduce a single Apple-designed and styled iPhone thingy.

Do I want and hope there will be an iPhone? Sure. I just don't see it based on the public statements.

I talked with my friend last night... he works for Motorola. He said that Motorola is a buzz with the new phone and says that it the phone runs the ipod software and is an integration of a cell phone and ipod (flash based).

the phone will actually not be anything special.

Its gonna basically be a normal moto phone that has an extra app that syncs with iTunes on Mac and PC.

lets hope the 2nd gen will bring forth an Apple Industrial Design with whole new interface, ease of use, etc.

I'm especially waiting for perfect syncing. I have SO many issues with keeping the address book on my .Mac, 2 macs, and Nokia 6600 coordinated. I always get duplicates, old numbers get reinserted, etc. I SO hate it and there doesnt seem to be any solution.

i hate moto.
utilitarian usa mecha, with no vision.
razr is nice, but not really there yet either.
thnx to messiahtosh and the actual video of the event, we see clearly that it is an iTunes app and song download app maybe even involving flash or brew even. no other apple involvement. they didnt even let him appear in person, for god sake, and doesnt it appear as if those two moto sharpie guys are humoring steve in some sort of way? that video is amazing. i am surprised it has been allowed to be put out as promotional in any way. moto and mac. very uninteresting combination.
vodafone is already doing the music download thing in its 3g markets already with some non iTunes libraries.
i love convergence. voice/data/camera/and music. but moto doesnt lead.
only thing midly interesting will be to see what external storage device format is used: moto will not use the new 1 gig Sony Duo Pro format, so maybe they will stick with a 512 MB SD, which would sync about 100 songs.
nothing interesting here, move on.
except for 1 more channel for iTunes to be sold, which is great for apple.

To all who are enchanting the next apple killer product: Well, as far as i understand the whole announcement, apple contributes software, moto does the hardware, no line mentioned about apple designing anything. Sorry guys. Period.

I don't want to be seen as a bummer but don't expect top notch design at all. Moto cell phones, anyone?

Music downloads via cell phones is a logical step anyways.
(of course via iTMS)

But i can be completely wrong

OK, so it looks like theres a few ways this Apple/Moto/phone/iPod flash thing could pan out:

1. 'iPod flash' is a standalone iPod with flash memory.
2. 'Moto iPhone' is an iTunes application installed on Moto phones.
3. 'iPod flash' and 'Moto iPhone' are the same thing, is an iPod with flash memory and phone internals, using an iPod interface/screen.

iPod flash as a standalone music player would be playing safe, bringing the iPod name lower down to the mass market flash players. There is a market for a sub mini iPod, how many times have you heard or read 'I'd love an iPod, but they're too expensive'? The iPod mini went some of the way, an iPod flash would go further.

If it was phone software, why limit it to Motorola phones? I don't know figures for market share, but I'd guess that the majority of the phone market was held by Nokia and SonyEricsson, and that as far as units sold go, Moto are a comparatively minor player. Unless they license it later on to other phone makers...

A true iPod/phone crossover would be the outside bet, but it would be brilliant if it happened. I just hope it gets updated according to phone market timescales, not Apple update timescales (iPod mini is a 12 month old product now, with no changes or updates apart from software). Oh, and I hope that its an Apple design with Moto phone tech, not a Moto phone with an Apple logo, but I think everyone here would want it that way .

Thank you fellow ZO. Actually...

We know Apple has cell phone prototype concepts in their vaults as part of their PDA strategizing.

This has nothing to do with Jobs' statement that "he was proud not to have done a PDA" and everything to do with the fact that the Newton was confirmed to have been worked in smaller prototype designs before it was steved.

As the first Apple iTunes Mobile licensee, the Moto phone had better rock.
It's in Apple's long term interest for the phone to deliver top-notch Mac sync capabilities and quality industrial design. This phone needs to deliver a six-month customer waiting list, if other phone licensees are going to eschew WMA and embrace iTunes.

I really can't see Apple hyping so crucial a product, at a Steve Jobs keynote no less, and having no input on design. It's not how Jobs operates.

Additionally, if Motorola had access to Apple's world-class base of industrial designers and didn't take advantage of the opportunity, the whole company should be relocated to Afghanistan for their stupidity.

Moto actually has a very cool 3G phone that I saw my friend has. The 990 or something lik ethat. Kinda like a P910. Stylus, browsing via UMTS/GRPS, etc.


It WOULD be nice if Moto and Apple pulled together and Apple finally used their Newton technologies to make a very kickass solution.

But, Im just expecting a Razr type phone that has an extra sync app.

Lame

will this be an add on for current phones via firmware update and dongle? it seems like the install base is there if the providers just push the firmware updates to things like the razor and v710

dear god, please let them make the v710 itunes compatible...i love that phone...and need a new phone in the next week or so...and am switching to VZW.

I would love it if apple could design the entire interface on the phone...wait...a 1 button phone would be a disaster...

It aint new bub...Sprint has Vision, part of which is music ringtones, vzw has get it now, cingular has the same type of stuff too, this is just an outside branding is it not? like the blockbuster video ppv channels on directv

if yr current fone has wap and external storage, then it is possible they could make yr fone backwards compatible with whatever comes out. but they wont.
they want to sell you a new fone. also, why and how anyone in the usa will be able to afford the downloads will be interesting (i mean direct purchase over yr fone from the iTunes music store). no 3g to speak off except in some cool test cities. therefore, the sync software. but does yf fone have external memory like SD? if not, then no, not backwards compatible.

so would a one-button iPod, keyboard, etc!

http://cellphones.engadget.com/entry/1234000420025117/

this could be iPhone, a new Motorola MP3 playing mobile phone. At the moment its stated as being for the Korean market. Maybe this is the phone being used for the iTunes software.

mind blowing indeed.

What were you expecting, a G5 in it?

Well, now that you're asking

Anyone know what's this all about?

Is it a real interview? I find it hard to believe an Apple VP would be so open about this in advance of a keynote.

I wonder if this is the shape of things to come with regard to the iphone. Notice that it uses the h.264 codec. So does Apple in the new QT.

partner that with a cell phone and camera and itunes etc and you have a really neat different product.


What think you all?
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=3895

Apple would never, ever, have anything to do with something so hideous. That's got to be the most classless design I've ever seen in my life. I'd rather own a stripper lamp than that.

looks like the "iPhone" is nothing more than an itunes-equipped Motorola cell phone:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1749057,00.asp

Hm...the "iPhone" is nothing more than an itunes-equipped Motorola cell phone...the "iPhone"...is nothing more than....an itunes-equipped Motorola cell phone, now where have I heard that before...hmm........ FROM DAY ONE!!!!



Honestly, that Forbes article earlier was a travesty of distortion. And people then went around jumping from "Apple is developing software to let users play songs on Motorola phones" to "Apple and Motorola are making an iPhone" all the way to "Apple is making an iPhone"...

ok fair enough. But now that there is a deal and a product I wonder if apple will have access to the cellguts of the phone for a potential apple produced product.

Perhaps the deal provides for a certain period of time for moto to produce the product before apple gets access to the chipsets.

just rampant speculation.

I do assume that since so much of the "iPod interface" (in the proper sense of "interface", i.e. not mere aesthetics, but rather the combination of interactions) is tied to navigating via scrollwheel, that the new phones will probably have that built in, licensed from Apple.

Note that Apple has lately been essentially branding what was previously just the "thumbwheel" or "scrollwheel" to us users, as "the Apple Click Wheel".

One can imagine that Apple could license the Apple Click Wheel out to hardware companies, as a way to maintain that high quality user experience that is so identified with the iPods. Often imitated, never duplicated.

Like, "oh, you want iTunes/iTMS integration, eh? ok but you must use the Apple Click Wheel too".