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Apple and Softbank to develop Cell Phone iPods?

as long as it isn't a fugly candy bar design im happy. SLVR and ROKR moreso = BLEH! Just because a cell phone is candy bar style doesn't mean it is required to be ugly right :p
 
NHK news has also been reporting this Saturday morning in Japan (and they do not deal with broadcasting rumors). Several weeks ago, NHK's Closeup Gendai also had an interesting piece about the market, the players (including a tidbit about Softbank), and the kind of technologies currently in and coming into Japanese keitai denwa's (mobile phones).

I'm trying to find a videolink of it online.

rockthecasbah said:
as long as it isn't a fugly candy bar design
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Most newer Japanese handsets are pretty nice. There are also some pretty weird prototypes which also never make it to market.
 
http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/afx/2006/03/05/afx2571060.html

Softbank reaches basic deal to buy Vodafone's Japan cell phone ops - report
03.05.2006, 09:13 AM

"TOKYO (AFX) - Softbank Corp has reached a basic agreement to buy Vodafone Group Plc's roughly 98 pct stake in Vodafone KK, Japan's third-largest cell phone service provider, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported.

The deal is projected to be worth 1.7-2.0 trln yen, which would make it one of the largest acquisitions by a Japanese company, it said." :eek:


http://www.vodafone.com/

"Built-in 3G broadband
High speed mobile access to your email, office and the internet, built-in to your laptop. Nothing to set up or install."

http://www.vodafone.com/section_art...LANGUAGE_ID%3D0%26CONTENT_ID%3D216763,00.html

"Smarter, smaller devices with faster, 'fatter' wireless connectivity are coming. We will soon expect all of these devices, from handheld to household, to 'talk' to each other and for all the embedded services to become an invisible feature of our extended, enabled environment. This could challenge existing industry and infrastructure boundaries and charging models and encourage new alliances and standards to deliver seamless solutions across a multitude of networks and devices. This is why we look at the complete picture when we plan for the future."


Other then this they just keep saying the future is about change, and when companies do this it means they DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO !!!

I guess that's why the sold the Japan division.


OH, here is a tidbit ...

Partnering for the Future ...
http://www.vodafone.com/section_art...LANGUAGE_ID%3D0%26CONTENT_ID%3D262714,00.html

"The Future Products Team is currently exploring opportunities for product innovations in the following areas:

Advanced Communications - voice and messaging services that further enrich the communication experience between customers, within specific communities or facilitating machine to machine communications

Content, Entertainment and Imaging - products that bring personalized and exciting information and entertainment services to the devices of a mobilised community. Services that allow the capturing and sharing of individual experiences and moments of joy in an easy and authentic way

Wireless Productivity - products and services that allow our customers to do business on the move and create a seamless experience between working in the office and being on the road"
 
EricNau said:
I can't see Apple releasing it in Japan before the US.
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The US cellphone market is very restricted compared to the European and Japanese market. For example, crippled cell phones is more or less unheard of over here in europe. Consequently, I wouldnt be surprised if Steve pulled a stunt like that after being burned on the ROKR. SonyEriscsson has a 4GB GSM/3G (UMTS) cellphone for sale over here, so who in their right mind would buy a 60GB iPod/phone that is capped to 100 tunes?:rolleyes:

unsaltedrhino said:
But even if it is, it will be easily unlockable as most handsets are.
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I know, but that is illegal and we are not supposed to discuss that here, are we?;)
 
It looks that this news is already printed on the newspaper.

It looks that this news is already printed on the newspaper.
(Saturday morning edition in Japan).
http://www.nni.nikkei.co.jp/ English short version is available here.
(I think that the Japanese text says much more wild thing !)
The electric version says (it is open to general, free. but only in Japanese)
Apple and SoftBank will 'co-develop' ...
It will arrive 'within this calendar year' ....

The NIKKEI is the WSJ of Japan, not a rumor site of course.
(NIKKEI Index is DJ index or NASDAQ index)
But the NIKKEI says only they approached agreement on this deal ...
So, no official anouncement yet from both company.
 
The only thing I know about Softbank is that they bought the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks baseball team (I lived in Fukuoka for a while). It would seem strange to me for an Apple product to come out in Japan only (even if it came out here later), especially since they're an American company.
 
addition ...

It is a 3G cell-phone that includes full iPod....
(not a iTMS capable cell-phone ....)
It will be co-branded .... (or both brand ? ..)
I cannot understand exact meaning.

Cell-phone music industry in Japan is huge.
It was already nearly 1/3 of CD-sales in 2004,
Cell-phone music 111.1 BYen vs. CD-sales 368.6 Byen
according to Japanese Organization of Digital Contents (a half government agency).
 
SLVR=rubbish

stockscalper said:
There already is a cell phone ipod and it's called the SLVR - just happens to be the best phone on the market right now. In one slender package you get a phone with 6 1/2 hours talk time, itunes, an email client (so you can replace the Blackberry) and a PDA that syncs via Bluetooth to your Mac. What more could you want? And did I point out it rocks! Sorry, Stevie, as usual you are late to the party.
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sorry but the interface on that phone is horrible, just like all motorola's. Also that phone is buggy as hell, when trying to connect to it via bluetooth it would total lock up. It is alright looking but that is a far as it goes with that one. Apple would be stupid to limit it to one phone carrier as anyone in the UK knows vodaphone are rubbish.
 
I live in Japan, and have a Vodafone 703SH... so maybe I'll get one when it comes out (though I doubt I'll use the iPod feature...)

But I wouldn't be surprised if this is true. Vodafone hasn't been doing very well in the past few years, because they've been making phones that did not meet the Japanese user's prefrences. And now, they've sold off Vodafone Japan to SoftBank. Currently, au (KDDI) brought up a music download service for Cells and PCs called "LISMO", and they've even made a phone with a 4GB HDD. I thought this would be the "iPod Killer" in Japan... but maybe not.

Vodafone Japan (now owned by SoftBank) wants to raise market share, and Apple needs to somehow make iTMS compatible with cell phones to compete with download services like LISMO. Plus, a recent survey (http://k-tai.impress.co.jp/cda/readers/odaibeya/28733.html) shows that a lot of people want an Apple-branded phone (45%!)
 
nagromme said:
Release in Japan first would be unusual, but anything's possible with Apple these days! And this partnership might not be an Apple-branded Apple-top-to-bottom phone, it could just have Apple contributing in other ways to a non-Apple product. Like with Motorola--only maybe Apple contributes on the hardware side some too.

A REAL Apple-designed phone with Apple ease-of-use would be great.

And Apple ease-of-use does NOT include buying songs over a phone, I don't imagine. A big screen and a keyboard REALLY help the iTMS searching experience. I can see Apple offering buying-by-phone if there was big demand, but I doubt there is. Buying directly to your master library (which is on your computer) just seems so much simpler.
Click to expand...

I agree. Buying music through my phone is NOT what I am looking for or want. I prefer downloading to my computer and then syncing.

What I want, is an iPod that plays music and videos and holds my calendars, to do's and contacts, but also lets me make phone calls and add info to my calendars, to do's and contacts. Basically, an iPod like we have now, but with Phone capability and calendar, contact and to do's editing capability. An iPod/Phone/PDA. And it needs to hold 60GB too like what I've got now. Email on it would be desirable, but I could live without it if nessecary.

Oh and P.S. I don't want the iTunes interface on my iPod/Phone, I want the iPod interface on it, once again, like what we have now.
 
Well, I just hope an Apple-branded phone will make significant design changes over regular cells... That would be pretty awesome; I have no idea what Apple might come up with in an iPhone.
 
pbrennen said:
to those of you talking about SIM cards, Japan is 100% CDMA.
Click to expand...

But a lot of Vodafone 3G cell phones are W-CDMA/GSM Compatible.

I took my 703SH to the U.S. on a vacation, and it connected to the T-Mobile and Cingular network automatically.
It was great, since I didn't want to rent a phone in the U.S. because honestly... the UI of the phones sold in the U.S. are just crap. So hard to use and confusing.
"Cell Phones" and "Keitai Denwa" are completely different stuff...
 
This wasn't a surprise to me, as I read elsewhere that Steve Jobs and Masayoshi Son, the president of Softbank, met recently.

This deal hasn't made to the headlines on Yahoo! Japan's top page yet ... but there has been a lot of intense speculation how Softbank would go war with NTT DoCoMo and KDDI, in its already saturated cellular market after buying Vodafone Japan. They are expected to utilize Yahoo! Japan's dominance in ISP and now Apple, which has the same market dominance in portable music player market there. Softbank will try to compete by the features and the name recognitions of two American companies. Interesting.

This shows how far Apple has reached in the mind of Japanese consumers, and you'll never understand this if you only read about Japan by US media that still stereotypes and whines Japan's "closed market."
 
EricNau said:
I can't see Apple releasing it in Japan before the US.
Click to expand...

I can. And in Europe too for that matter. Phones outside the US are feature rich, unblocked multi-function devices. The infrastructure is much denser because the countries are smaller and more populous. The mobile industry moves much quicker.

If you want to release an innovative phone, USA isn't No.1.

And I hope it's a candybar phone too. Or a slider. Not a flip phone. Eeeww.

The selling point for me though will be the OS and UI they run on it. If it's like UIQ 3 then I'll be right there, if it's like Moto's phones I'll pass right on by to Sony again.
 
The relationship with Softbank is almost irrelevant.

The more interesting alliance will be where Apple buy the cellular technology from. They'll need a baseband platform (silicon, layer 1) and a protocol stack to stick on top of it. Do Apple have a close relationship with TI? Seem to remember they'd worked together on other things. What about Qualcomm, they have silicon in the ipod at the moment don't they?

Though which technology they target is also interesting, Qualcomm/EMP for UMTS but for GSM/GPRS/Edge the options are much wider, there are a number of independent suppliers who should be beating down Apples door, the volumes will be very high. I know for a fact that Apple were looking around for an Edge platform last year but they weren't saying which product line it was for.

The selling point for me though will be the OS and UI they run on it. If it's like UIQ 3 then I'll be right there, if it's like Moto's phones I'll pass right on by to Sony again.
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Again there are a number of independent suppliers of UI platforms but it could end up home-grown. Though regardless of the manufacturer the majority of mobiles use one of a small number of application platforms.
 
Its a good idea because most people in Japan buy music or ringtones for their moblie phone. The market will take off here so Apple should start selling ipod phones....
 
KTYS said:
...the UI of the phones sold in the U.S. are just crap. So hard to use and confusing.
"Cell Phones" and "Keitai Denwa" are completely different stuff...
Click to expand...



Thank you. I've been telling people this for years and I live in the US myself. I love my Sony Ericsson which kicks the crap out those stupid RAZRs, etc
 
KTYS said:
the UI of the phones sold in the U.S. are just crap.
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Heh, it is hard for folks to understand unless they've actually used a keitai and the different services in Japan. :D

whee900 said:
have no idea what Apple might come up with in an iPhone.
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Finally found a video link for that recent Closeup Gendai which might be helpful as there are some quick shots of keitai denwa doing stuff like video. The second clip shows what is happening on the music side in more detail and what Apple will be competing with. There are some shots of the LISMO service mentioned earlier which is the closest thing to what the iPod does.
 
JZ Wire said:
I hope this is true. I can only imagine what it would be like if Apple made a cell phone but I guess we wont have to wait much longer. :)
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Ive been waiting for 6months for the Sony Ericsson P990, and that is still not yet out in the UK. It is those features that the Apple phone will have to beat as the ROKR was a disaster, partly due to Motorola's poor UI :rolleyes:
 
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