Motorola confirms future iTunes phones

[MacBytes]

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Category: 3rd Party Hardware
Link: Motorola confirms future iTunes phones (http://www.macbytes.com/link.php?sid=20050909103132)

Posted on MacBytes.com (http://www.macbytes.com)
Approved by Mudbug

[Mudbug]

I hope the upcoming models come with a smaller bucket of crappiness than the current offering.

[sillycybin]

He also confirmed that the Apple Motorola deal meant his company was the first to bring such a handset to the market, but others may follow suit. "It's not just exclusive to Motorola", he explained.


Just what I was hoping, Mobile iTunes on other phones besided Moto. wonder who will be the first to follow. Hopefully Nokia

[lopresmb]

I hope the upcoming models come with a smaller bucket of crappiness than the current offering.

I agree, the ROKR is nothing to write home about, at least make a RAZR with itunes capabilities

[tsaxer]

Yeah, but the downside to me is that we have to wait till nest quarter before we can even begin to expect something worth having. I guess I'll just settle for one of Moto's flip phones as my upgrade. (I currently have some ancient piece o' junk, still rolling with the green/black interface).

[mkubal]

I hope the upcoming models come with a smaller bucket of crappiness than the current offering.

I might be willing to lug around a large bucket of crap, but certainly not at this outrageous price. I might have paid $50 for that phone with a 2 year service plan because I could always ditch the phone for a better one if I hated it. $250 plus 2 years of service!? I think you know where to shove it, Cingular.

[Lacero]

Did you hear what the Cingular guy said at the end of his speech. He said they [cingular] were working hard to get top notch products to this country. I said, "WTF".

[lmalave]

I wouldn't consider buying an iTunes phone until it has a memory card slot like the Sony MP3 phones.

Granted, I probably would not buy an iPod nano then, which is exactly the reason why Apple won't allow this.

Apple should think big, though. There are 700M cellphones in use and increasingly they will include both music and photo features. In the long run, Apple could probably make up in iTunes software licensing fees and iTunes store profits what it loses in iPod hardware sales (though I agree that in the short term it would be a money-losing proposition...)

Anyway, there will still be a lot of serious iPod users (perhaps even the majority) that won't give up the iPod wheel to navigate their huge music collections and want to have a lot of music readily available. I'm in the group of people that just wants to have a few playlists handy for workouts, commute, etc.

[richdun]

I wouldn't consider buying an iTunes phone until it has a memory card slot like the Sony MP3 phones.

The ROKR does have a memory card slot, miniSD in fact. The problem is that iTunes mobile limits the NUMBER of songs to 100, not that the memory card is too small. ROKR from Cingular ships with a 512MB card.

And rumor/talk from Moto's CEO says that it was Apple that imposed the limit due to licensing concerns. Even more likely is that Apple isn't ready to give up on music/photo-only iPods just yet, and doesn't want the phones eating into iPod revenues. Apple gets all the money from iPods, but it has to share with Cingular and Motorola for the ROKR.

[Mr.Hey]

How the Hell do you partner up with the best hardware/software designe company in the world and you don't allow them produce the product for you!?!

They probably recived many negative comments about the ROKR and all they're doing now is covering their ass by saying "We'll have more... better ones too, don't you worry!" Asshats!

[Some_Big_Spoon]

Warm bucket of hamster vomit is more like it.. Unless it's got an Apple logo on the outside it'll be a mess of extra knobs and buttons, shark fins, and decals that does no one any good. It doesn't have to look like it's "FROM THE FUTURE!" for us to be interested, it just has to work and get out of our way. If this brick sells well, maybe they'll let Apple design the phone.

I hope the upcoming models come with a smaller bucket of crappiness than the current offering.

[lmalave]

The ROKR does have a memory card slot, miniSD in fact. The problem is that iTunes mobile limits the NUMBER of songs to 100, not that the memory card is too small. ROKR from Cingular ships with a 512MB card.

And rumor/talk from Moto's CEO says that it was Apple that imposed the limit due to licensing concerns. Even more likely is that Apple isn't ready to give up on music/photo-only iPods just yet, and doesn't want the phones eating into iPod revenues. Apple gets all the money from iPods, but it has to share with Cingular and Motorola for the ROKR.

Ahh, good point. That's not so bad, then. I'll still wait for rev. 2 of the iTunes phone, since I'm locked into T-Mobile for now anyway. Also, I'm rather fond of my Blackberry. Hopefully, Apple will up the iTunes mobile limitation to 200 songs or so (enough to have several distinct playlists) and someone will come out with a phone that has everything the ROKR has plus a decent email client. I don't have to have a Blackberry, but I'd like to have a decent email client where I can fetch my mail easily when I want to.

Actually, maybe the 3G version is the solution. I only read my Yahoo! mail on my Blackberry anyway. Before I had the Blackbery I had a Sony Ericsson T610, but when I tried to use the WAP version of Yahoo Mail it was crushingly slow. If a 3G phone actually gives me a snappy web browser, that might be all I need...

[Sabenth]

what gets me with all this itunes on a mobile is this ...


People wanted this for what ever reason then it comes and a lot of people kick up a fuss over how this phone looks yet no ones saying how it sounds... I use a SE mobile with a memory slot and i can have as many songs as i like on it as long as the memory dont get all used up it might not have iTunes interface or search options but it dose the job it also has photos etc movies and all the other crap people want these days best of all it didnt cost me as much as that thing dose

[tsaxer]

Must...have...punctuation...

My biggest beef with the thing is not how it looks, though I don't like it. It's the artificial 100 song cap. That just plain ol' sucks.

[Abstract]

What's the battery life on the ROKR when using iTunes? I remember the "keynote" and one of the guys (the Cingular guy?) droned on and on about something, and then he said something about being able to take a 4-6 hour flight from one side of the country to the other, listening to music the entire time, using the phone 3 or 4 times, leaving the phone on all night in the hotel, and when he woke up, the battery was still full. I think he is full.....of crap.

[aswitcher]

I think he is full.....of crap.


Yeah that little tale felt as greesy as a real estate agents / used car salesmans pitch...

[Applespider]

and then he said something about being able to take a 4-6 hour flight from one side of the country to the other, listening to music the entire time,

Does it have a 'flight only' mode then so you can leave it on on aircraft then? My p800/900 had that feature although recently BA have been telling you to turn that off too.

I'm calling nonsense too...

[aswitcher]

Does it have a 'flight only' mode SNIP

Yeah, I am sure he mentioned that in his presentation.

[wdlove]

Since my wife has a contract with Verizon till 2007, she couldn't wait. She purchased a new LG phone yesterday. A lot of nice features. It will also allow iTunes, she just needs to go back to get the software.

[wrxguy]

this makes me happy cause i tried out the current one and it is a P.O.S. I swear the old ass nokia phones are better than this one....its a joke...