Business 2.0 Predicts iPhone for 2005

by , 2:00 PM EST, December 28th, 2004

Writing for Business 2.0, Erick Schonfield has offered his predictions for 2005. With Apple being the hottest tech company on the planet, Mr. Schonfield's list includes what he expects to see coming out of Cupertino during the next 12 months. High on his list is the iPhone and a Motorola-branded iPod.

"Long craved by the Mac faithful, a sleek, beautiful cell phone that doubles as a digital-music player is coming soon from Apple's iPod division," he wrote. "Although Steve Jobs has often dismissed the notion of such an offering because other companies are better at making phones, an already-announced but vague partnership with Motorola will allow Apple (AAPL) to stick to what it does best: great tech design."

Mr. Schonfield is likely referring to Steve Jobs' announcement that Motorola would be producing a phone that can play iTunes downloads. Apple executives have publicly said in recent weeks to expect such a phone in the first calendar quarter of 2005.

Mr. Schonfield also expects Motorola to release its own branded iPod "but with lower-capacity flash memory instead of a larger hard drive."

To cap his trifecta of predictions, Mr. Schonfield said we should look "for future iPods to incorporate a satellite radio (even a regular radio would be nice)."

The full article at Business 2.0 includes predictions for the DVR, Google, blogs, tech consolidation, nanotech and fuel cells, Chinese IPOs, and the word "passion."

The Mac Observer Spin:

We wouldn't recommend holding your breath waiting for Mr. Schonfield's predictions to come true. While Apple is working with Motorola to make the iTunes-capable phone we mentioned, this is not the same as Apple making an actual "iPhone."

An Apple-branded phone would mean that Apple made the interface and form factor. If the company was doing that, it would not likely work with Motorola to make iTunes-capable phones in the first place. Apple is one of the last companies on the planet that would enable the competition before entering a market.

A Motorola-branded iPod, however, would be rather interesting, but we don't expect that to happen, either. Motorola doesn't offer the same kind of benefits to Apple as a partner that a company like HP does.

Namely, HP has a retail presence with Windows users in companies around the world. Motorola does business around the world, too, but it doesn't have the same kind of direct pipeline to Windows-specific customers the way HP does.

That said, such a partnership would show that Apple continues to think differently about the way it approaches this market, and that would be a Good Thing™.

Whither Apple, Google, Blogs, and DVRs