iTunes on Motorola Phones

[Bob Knob]

I had a discussion with a higher level rep for Alpine a few months ago (one of my business partners has another business in the car stereo world) and the subject of the iPod-Alpine stereo came up. His only comment was that they were waiting for the final version of some software from Apple.
When the BMW thing was announced, and Alpine set shipping dates, both closely followed by the iPod software update I figured that this must be the software Alpine was waiting for... but now I wonder if there is in fact a scaled down version of iTunes running in the BMW and Alpine stereos.

 

[voodoofish]

This just goes to prove that Apple is willing to work with worthy partners when it comes to their music strategy. Obviously HP, BMW, Motorola and AOL fall into that category, while chumps like Real Networks do not...

Well Real compete directly with Quicktime do they not?

 

[stephenli]

But my 2 Motorola V60's are over 2 years old now. If what you say is always true, then how are mine working. And I can connect with my ISP with this phone as well.

I could only say that you are lucky or my colleauges are too unlucky. Motorola's Design is getteing better and better (I mean GSM, not 3G....)
However I still dare not to get one....

 

[voodoofish]

#1 only by sales, not really in any other sense, but if this really takes of probably most phones will get it sooner or later, as well as other gadgets.

I've just recently upgraded my phone and I was considering switching from Nokia to Motorola (the V600 as it was quad-band), but then I kept reading about all the bizarre things Motorola do to their phones - for example, in the phonebook you can store more than one number under each persons' name, but when you browse through the phonebook they show up as separate entries, which means I'm gonna get like every person's name in my phone book showing up at least twice, which is just ridiculous. Also, despite the fact Nokias have done this for years, the Motorola *still* can't hold people's addresses nor can it save their birthdays in the calendar. The thing that finally did it for me was when I read that the ring & vibrate mode *still* vibrates first and then rings!! It's so ridiculous how unintuitive is that??? So I just decided that I couldn't deal with switching from a Nokia, which actually behaves how I would logically expect it to.


So yeah I do think it's a shame that Apple have partnered with Motorola over Nokia, because even though Motorola's eating away at Nokia's market share, through their products it's still obvious Nokia's based in the most mature mobile market in the world, whereas Motorola's based in one of the most bizzarre mobile markets in the developed world.


[Perhaps the chose not to go with Nokia since Nokia have supported AAC for years, but not the flavour iTunes uses (I don't really understand all the different versions of AAC, but basically non-DRMed iTunes AAC files won't play on a Nokia), and none of Nokia's PC suites or their recently released Nokia LifeBlog will work on a Mac. I think the real reason they chose Motorola is because most American's still seem to use Motorolas, and Apple does seem to often be a bit short sighted when looking it's own countries border lines]

 

[maddav]

Well Motorola are releasing a PDA/Phone (MPX) that runs Pocket PC, it would be easier to include it in that, but I'm not sure if Steve Jobs really wants to give the protected AAC decoder to a Microsoft application! (or is that just my thought?)

 

[voodoofish]

To the moron posting above, the new Moto phone looks ridiculously cool. For some of us, design is worth $700. The phone has no new features beyond the v600 except that the v600 is a behemoth and so-so looking. The v3 is gorgeous. I want one.

To everyone, this announcement is big. It's a harbinger. Do people still believe The Big Lie (tm) that Apple is doing all this music store stuff to sell iPods? I have a bridge to sell you if you do.

It's actually really ugly and wide, like a big ugly square in your pocket.


If you want a nice looking phone, get a Nokia stainless steel or titanium phone, or pretty much any Samsung phone, all though all the samsungs tend to look the same which kinda spoils it.

 

[AmigoMac]

Apple does it again...

Sh*t! Whenever I want to think about updating my portable devices, comes a rumor/news of this magnitude and changes my projects I've been in the mobile communications business since 4 years ago and my personal experience with Motorola phones hasn't been the best, twice a year I've tried some Moto's and their OS is far away from Nokia's and SE's ... Those are pretty simple to use, I do hope they come with an "Apple-ish" interface, nice camera (1.3 MP won't be that bad ), Bluetooth is for sure built-in, but address book groups syncing has been always terrible ... Maybe it's the time to increase iPod-Mini size and put the 4 GB in the phone ... , wasn't there news about 2GB drives? ... I use a Nokia 3650, does everything nice, apart from groups syncing ... But I want a better camera ... Hurry up Mac-Torola! or I'll get my second Nokia by then...

...My work colleges are from Finland, using Sony-Ericsson is not the first choice ...

 

[voodoofish]

Mr. Jobs, please repeat after me: CDMA

I personally want to see these phones on networks other than GSM. Apple, get these to the CDMA market!

It's so funny when Americans go on about CDMA, they're always like 'well when you take into account handset design & features vs coverage then CDMA is just about better than GSM' but it's like hello, outside of North America you don't have to weigh up anything vs. anything because all phones just use GSM.

GSM also has 1.1 Billion users worldwide and can use their phones in over 200 countries worldwide. GSM only countries also tend to be more up-to-date with phones anyway - for example, in the UK over 2/3rds of the population now live in areas with 3G coverage, whereas in the US only a handful of cities have 3G coverage, which has only just gone live recently, whereas we've had 3G for over a year and can even roam to a number of different countries with it.

(Look at this quote from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/02/23/one_billion_people_use_gsm/

"In the last twelve months, GSM added nearly 198 million new users - more than CDMA, the second-placed mobile technology, had in its global customer base at the end of 2003.")

So basically, if Apple want to get iTunes into as many hands as possible, there will be GSM phones, but since Apple is so super-duper American (and since Motorola is American and thus tends to make alot of CDMA phones), it is very likely there will also be CDMA phones with iTunes support.

 

[AmigoMac]

Repeat after me ...

Originally Posted by dethl

Mr. Jobs, please repeat after me: CDMA

I personally want to see these phones on networks other than GSM. Apple, get these to the CDMA market!

----------

dethl repeat after me :

Apple makes computers, Motorola phones ...

It's not up to S. Jobs to decide the network, they for sure want too many customers as possible, and they are worldwide by now and Europe runs GSM ... maybe the project involves those who "Call different"
... or those CDMA operators will go behind MS services... let's see in 1 year and good luck!

 

[jwhitnah]

iSync

I wonder if this has anything to do with iSync 1.5?

 

[swissandrew]

I think we could be looking at a more integrated offering when we consider what else can be used on a phone.

Using mobile technology like Musikube's it is possible to both recognise a song from a 3 second or so 'snapshot' or recognise it from a bar code printed on an ad, concert ticket etc.

Now if this is then integrated into the ITMS then someone with a mobile could hear music (for example in a bar), get the name, buy the track from ITMS onto their phone and then store it back into their Mac / PC next time they synched, all within a matter of seconds. Maybe there is a revenue sharing arrangement between Motorola and Apple for songs purchased this way.

Secondly, my understanding (please correct if I'm wrong) is that sales of ringtones is currently higher than sales on singles. This would enable Apple & Motorola to get into that market.

On it's own the technology seems limited (unless phones start getting compact drives like the iPod Mini) as most people buy phones to make calls, send messages. High end phone users (where the phones have more memory) are probably also more likely to want a iPod as they are early technology adopters. Start thinking about new ways of behaving from integrated technology and then a whole new market becomes available which pushes sales to both ITMS and potentially Motorola.

Of course, just adding ability to play tunes bought on ITMS increases it's penetration. People buying tracks using a mobile device will want to use it immediately so giving a phone the capability to play these tracks enables ITMS to be used from a phone, giving the opportunity to get much better market penetration (incidently it is unlikely a store which gives listening access for a subscription will work in the mobile field where data is charged per unit rather than a fixed-per-month cost like broadband)

This all becomes possible because only iTunes (ignoring the Real thing) can handle tunes bought on ITMS and that leads the market - people will want to buy one copy which can be used on all devices, that the publishers are willing to sell electronically (because the rights management is good). It helps Apple establish the standard in purchased music which then benefits Motorola sales.

It could be a very smart alliance.

Andrew

 

[BornAgainMac]

Finally, a Flash based mp3 player for iTunes protected music. I'll take one.

 

[whooleytoo]

i wonder if i'll ever be using apple's click wheel to dial a telephone number. how well would that work? just dreaming of new designs.

You could simply use the wheel to scroll through the numbers using the wheel, then click the centre button to select, but that would be difficult to do accurately unless you do so slowly.

The other alternative would be to show the numbers in a group of 4 (1..4, 5..8 etc) on screen, in the positions North, East, South, and West. Then you use the scroll wheel to move to the right group, then press the button in the corresponding (N-E-S-W) position on the click wheel to select the right digit.

This would be a faster method of entry, since you don't have to be accurate with the scrolling to a single digit, you just have to get it within four.
You could easily apply the same method for text entry on the iPod.

A final method would be slightly different, arrange letters in groups of 6 or so, then scroll to the required group, select using the centre button, then scroll to the required letter. Although it requires two clicks to select any letter, it still means you're selecting from a shorter list which is easier to do accurately and quickly.

Add a phonebook, and text prediction, and I don't see any problem doing this without modifiying the iPod's look very much at all.

 

[210]

I think this is good news as it will make more people aware and use iTunes more than before and maybe more aware of Apple products. It's also good that Apple realizes that there is a lot of competition out there and so should try and be a few steps ahead to remain on top. All good news for iTunes/Music Store/iPod.

But what about their computers? I'm glad they don't want to lose popularity for their music products, but shouldn't they be a little concerned about Macs' dwindling marketshare? How can Apple turn the tide on this? Maybe they should persuade these companies they're partnering with to use Macs

 

[virividox]

as long as motorola isnt in charge of making chips hehe

 

[obiwan]

as long as motorola isnt in charge of making chips hehe

I reckon Apple are making friends with Motorola again, just in case IBM don't deliver the goods. - I mean, we're still waiting for that 3Ghz G5 they promised...

 

[iMeowbot]

I reckon Apple are making friends with Motorola again, just in case IBM don't deliver the goods. - I mean, we're still waiting for that 3Ghz G5 they promised...

Motorola doesn't make PowerPC chips any more. The Freescale IPO happened about a week ago.

 

[Machead III]

Whilst this is all very exciting, I am really waiting for Apple to tie up the final loose ends in it's Music venture and move onto the onbvious next one, Movies.

It may be some time, but it's practically guaranteed the Jobster will work on On Demand online movies and more excitingly, some kind of software/device that augments the cinema going experience etc.

But for now, I guess music is the scene, but I have my mini, I have had all my music on iTunes for months now and I buy a song or two every week, my music life has successfully entered the 21st century, but film is where it is gonna be at.

Anyone agree?

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

I'll be curious to see how this develops. I'm guessing it will start as a basic phone that holds a 256MG flash card -- good enough for 50-60 songs. You could have an "iPhone" playlist on your iTunes. Motorola could grow it later as the cost of flash cards continues to come down.

With compact flash cards going to 8GB there are many possibilities. Including the same MicroDrive that is used in the mini Ipod.

 

[Yvan256]

for what its worth arn, the frame for this article rendered incorrectly in firefox 0.8:

And for what it's worth, I get weird characters in Opera 7.53 on WinXP:

 

[plus_c]

Originally Posted by dethl

Mr. Jobs, please repeat after me: CDMA

I personally want to see these phones on networks other than GSM. Apple, get these to the CDMA market!

----------

dethl repeat after me :

Apple makes computers, Motorola phones ...

It's not up to S. Jobs to decide the network, they for sure want too many customers as possible, and they are worldwide by now and Europe runs GSM ... maybe the project involves those who "Call different"
... or those CDMA operators will go behind MS services... let's see in 1 year and good luck!

I'm sure that Motorola will release both CDMA and GSM versions of this phone...they've done so for pretty much every other phone they've got (T72x series, C33x series, C35x series, v60, etc.) Perhaps the reason why we didn't hear about the network protocol they're using is because they're going to use all of them?

 

[AmigoMac]

Your problem is encoding...

And for what it's worth, I get weird characters in Opera 7.53 on WinXP:

Look in your menu for "Text encoding" change to western, it would help, or change to anything else... I'm pretty sure it will be ok...

 

[1macker1]

Do these guys do anything that's not music related anymore.

 

[JeffTL]

Hm.

Ummmmmm, no.

The dial, there, is from the best phone ever made. I still use one

But I never said take the dial from a Western Electric, shrink it, and put it on the iPod. I was thinking more along the lines of numbers in the touchwheel, which must be "dragged" along the wheel clockwise to a simulated fingerstop (really just a silkscreened bar) to confirm the numeric input. No need to wait for a returnstroke, so it'd be only a bit slower than key input and (so far as I can imagine) swifter than scrolling around in circles to select digits and individually confirming them with the select button. The key is that it be simulated rather than actual -- rotary dials by necessity have moving parts, and iPods have to be able to take some crap.

The clickwheel iPod, though, already has enough on the wheel. Perimeter buttons (no room on the iPod without MAJOR redesign for a proper telephone keypad) or even something in software suddenly look pretty good.

 

[the_mole1314]

This sounds like good news, lets just hope they expand this more....