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No iTunes on Motorola E1060 (UPDATE)

No iTunes on Motorola E1060 (UPDATE)

by , 10:25 AM EST, February 16th, 2005

Motorola's E1060 mobile phone unveiled Monday will not have iTunes compatibility and is not "the" iTunes phone, TMO has learned.

The demonstration of iTunes capabilities on the E1060 at the 3GSM World Congress where it was introduced was simply to show off the technology. Reuters apparently misunderstood this in their story, which created a snowball effect and led other outlets to proclaim the E1060 the iTunes phone.

"It appears that Motorola was demonstrating the capabilities of playing iTunes music on the E1060, but that the E1060 is not going to have the ability to play iTunes songs," Jason Gales of MobileTracker, which broke the story, told TMO. Alan Buddendeck, direct of public relations at Motorola, has confirmed this same report to TMO.

MacWorld UK reported Wednesday a Motorola spokeswoman confirming, "this product was used only as a demo to showcase the iTunes application...For competitive reasons, we are holding information (including specifications and design) very closely until the appropriate time and venue for product launch...We will be announcing the first iTunes phone in the near future."

Mr. Gales suspects Motorola may roll out the actual iTunes-compatible phone at the CTIA Wireless convention in New Orleans next month.

Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
Close Name:Guest
Subject: iTunes Phone

Great news. That phone was ugly.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Explains everything

Right that would explain why when one went to the particular page on Motorola's web site refering to that phone it had no reference what so ever to iTunes or indeed amusic player at all. Might be useful to do some basic research I suppose before reporting such a misunderstanding.

Close Name:Small White Car Posts: 1960 Joined: 02 Jul 2004
Subject:

Well, it looks like Reuters messed it up, but really, can you blame them?

What kind of stupid thing was that, Motorola? Showing off a feature on a phone that won't actually have that feature? No wonder they got confused.

Close Name:kwameaj Posts: 4 Joined: 24 Jul 2004
Subject: iTunes Phone

I knew it wasn't it. Apple will want to make a splash with it. Given the Nokia-Microsoft deal, the iTunes phones should be something more newsworthy than what we saw.

By the way, won't the sale of this phone eat into the iPod shuffle market?

Close Name:randompro42 Posts: 236 Joined: 25 Sep 2003
Subject:

Quote
kwameaj wrote:
I knew it wasn't it. Apple will want to make a splash with it. Given the Nokia-Microsoft deal, the iTunes phones should be something more newsworthy than what we saw.

By the way, won't the sale of this phone eat into the iPod shuffle market?


it may have a small impact on the shuffle market, but i dont think that much

this phone will probably be available for very few providers, and will also probably require bluetooth to sync the files

shuffle uses USB, and everyone now has USB

TRO

Close Name:Small White Car Posts: 1960 Joined: 02 Jul 2004
Subject: Re: iTunes Phone

Quote
kwameaj wrote:

By the way, won't the sale of this phone eat into the iPod shuffle market?


Do we know what kind of memory the phone will have? I think 256 KB is reasonable. If someone wants a 1 GB shuffle, that certainly won't appeal to them.

Close Name:jimothy Posts: 612 Joined: 04 Jun 2004
Subject: Shuffle

Quote
Small White Car wrote:
Quote
kwameaj wrote:

By the way, won't the sale of this phone eat into the iPod shuffle market?


Do we know what kind of memory the phone will have? I think 256 KB is reasonable. If someone wants a 1 GB shuffle, that certainly won't appeal to them.


Nor do we know what the price of the phone will be. Even with carrier subsidies, prices on some "trendy" phones is outrageous. Look at the RAZR, which is going for $500 with a 2-year contract. The iTunes phone could be priced at that point, it could be a freebie phone, or any where in between. We just don't know.

I think that eventually (2+ years), cellphones may offer competition to flash based players like the shuffle. But Apple is likely to strike deals with other manufactures (it'll be a race to see who signs more deals: Apple or Microsoft). So while their revenue per-unit will go down, the volume of cell phone sales is huge compared to that of MP3 players. Nearly 700 million cell phones were sold world-wide last year. The license revenue for Apple could be huge, and the manufacturing cost to Apple would be zero.

Close Name:Mace Posts: 9604 Joined: 07 Aug 2003
Subject:

I felt better now. I was disappointed with the phone. I expect better styling and easier to use UI.

Close Name:Dreadnought Posts: 162 Joined: 01 Jan 2005
Subject: Whew!

That phone was fugly.

Not something that should ever be associated with an Apple product.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Cost of phone

Apple said in January at MacWorld that the iTunes phone would be mid-priced-affordable, not high-end, putting it in the $250-300 range.

Close Name:gslusher Posts: 2088 Joined: 13 Nov 2002
Subject: FUGLY!

Quote
Dreadnought wrote:
That phone was fugly.


Now, there's a new word (for me, at least) that makes sense, as in "f-ing ugly." Thanks for the laugh! (Reminds me of the Car Talk guys' makeup artist, Bud Tugley.

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