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By the way, it's not "Apple's iTunes Phone," as Business Week and others are calling it. It's Motorola's. Just because Steve Jobs introduced it at some big event, doesn't make it Apple's product. It's not being sold by Apple or manufactured by Apple. Just because Bose makes the sound system on certain General Motors cars doesn't mean you see the car named "Bose's Chevrolet Corvette".

And yet you seem to miss that very point when you say that the all-mighty dollar interfered. I think BW is right - this was a very deliberate move. Jobs cares not one whit about this particular phone - this is just sticking the toe in the water. Stop feeling so trodden on, like we're all victims or something.

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Now if only Steve Jobs would have thought about that.

He obviously did. And you even tacitly acknowledge it.

Now if they'd roll full iPod functionality into say a Sony Ericsson P910, then I would definitively be interested....

And it's NOT an ipod phone. It's a phone that can store itunes!! The phone is a very standard looking thing, and only works with cingular. I use Verizon and like my LG flipphone, so I'll pass. plus, I LOVE MY ipod mini.
If Apple made an ipod flipphone, that was well designed(ofcourse it would be;), NOW THAT would be sweet!!!

Was this story even proofread before it was posted? The grammar is atrocious and it has all the reasoning and credibility of a whiny teenager stomping his feet and having a fit. "Mr. Jobs has stolen what could have been a great customer experience for consumers." *Stolen?* What a sense of entitlement, and what an irrational criticism, to blame Steve Jobs personally for taking something away that you never had.

TMO usually posts much higher quality stuff than this. Whoever wrote this has displayed a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation.

playing any kind of music through a tinny speaker is as smart as taking a grainy picture or trying to type a text message on a micro keyboard all these "features " are a strain of trying to create an audience for a lame product idea. you can take a bad idea and run with it big corporations are famous for it . jobs figues that a few sales at the old i tunes store can't hurt. what salesman says "you can't buy stuff from my store" (only the one that's out of work) I think it's motorola that is desperate for an idea not apple. the bottom line is while your waiting for a signal or when your call cuts out you can take a picture and as soon as you get 4 bars back you can send it to the "can you hear me now" guy and maybe the phone company will start fixing all the dead spots in the network instead of finding ways to keep you mini occupado on your stupid cell phone.
the big news is still that the apple store in my area is ALWAYS buisy

Did I miss something, or was this a Motorola product, not an Apple product. Apple didn't design it, why is this idiot going on and on about what Jobs should have done when its not even his product!?

If you are going to take the time to blast something, at least get your facts straight.

how did this clown get to be a mac observer columnist? i mean, come on... i have not seen such a rant-filled, blindly unintelligent article in some time... keep those kind of posts in the forum section, where they belong.

first off, steve jobs has many gifts, and one of those is as a phenomenally good salesman, and secondly as a sharp businessman-- this ROKR phone is the beginning of a great business alliance from motorola, cingular, and apple, and while the phone is not the most impressive product in the world, it's a start. it is exactly what steve said it was, too. a cell phone with a built-in shuffle, but with a display. it looks like it serves that purpose rather well, too. the song capacity kinda sucks, yes, but this could be the beginning of a great line of products in the future.

to apple, this is only a good thing-- revenue generated by the itunes client, revenue generated by getting more people on board with the itms, revenue by impressing those people to the point of wanting bigger ipods, and lastly, revenue by the proven-sucessful halo effect that is effectively boosting macintosh sales...

i think the big bugaboo here was made by cingular-- offering the latest and greatest product for $50 too pricey, and by demanding a 2-year contract with it, not allowing current customers to easily upgrade. motorola also screwed up in making the phone so darn ugly... it they would have put this functionality into a RAZR, they would have sold me in a heartbeat... when i heard about this phone, i actually thought i might get one, until i saw it... they should have at least made it a flip-phone for goodness sakes..

This is low grade writing. "they are basically saying they could really care less." Why do people always get this wrong? It should be "couldn't care less". Think about it.

Oh, and it's "watered down" not "water downed".

It's "watered down" not "water downed."
"This reporter" as he calls himself, needs an editor.

I think Mr. Gibson made some good points.

For one, if you "informed" critics actually paid attention to any news beyond what Apple sends out in press releases, you'll realize that it was Apple that crippled this phone -- Engadget talked with some Moto big-shots who hinted at tension between the companies because of Apple's requirement to limit the number of songs that can be stored (which they originally pegged at 25).

And if you've actually played around with the phone (as I have), you'll know that it is certainly not deserving of any sort of praise. Even Macworld *tried* to review it, but couldn't because they were unable to sync it with any of their Macs.

My bet is that Jobs wanted to cripple the phone for the very reason every analyst is hinting at: he doesn't want a device he has little control over to cannibalize iPod sales. I'm thinking the only reason he went along with this in the first place was because he sees the importance of the cellphones -- he wants to make sure he has his fingers in every market. But he wants to focus things on iPod...at least until Apple comes out with their own phone.

it does make perfect sense why they wouldn't want it to be better than an ipod, but i highly doubt its near as malicious as you make it sound. for people who want a few songs on their cell, this device would be great for that, but at the end of the day, if you want more than 100 songs, apple makes an "insanely great" little product called an iPod nano with 10x the capacity and 10x the features for the same price as one of these phones. buy a RAZR, hold it next to the nano, and the result is about the same size as one of these ROKRs... no big deal. at the end of the day, it just means more money for apple, which is great for stockholders like myself, and great for all of us apple fanatics because it means apple can just continue to build great first-party products.

Are your sure?

Maybe it should be <i>Watership Down</i>?

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burrito wrote:
it does make perfect sense why they wouldn't want it to be better than an ipod, but i highly doubt its near as malicious as you make it sound. for people who want a few songs on their cell, this device would be great for that.

Well, that's the thing: It's not necessarily "great for that;" I'm hearing that it's unresponsive and buggy, and it uses the flawed Moto OS. The gadget sites -- Engadget and Gizmodo -- tore the things apart in their reviews.

Oh well. Hopefully the future phones will be better.

I could write better than Brad Gibson if I were gutshot, but I don't think the monkey's wrong. MP3 player/phone hybrids are a retarded idea to begin with, no matter who makes them, and the problems inherent with their designs are the reasons the ROKR E1 is getting panned, as well it should be.

This is what always happends to hybrid multifunction devices, it shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone.

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pourhadi wrote:


Oh well. Hopefully the future phones will be better.

yep... i hope so too... oh well, i am happy with my shuffle, and i am sure i will be happy with my nano when my paycheck comes in, so this phone doesn't really matter much anyways... let's all just cross our fingers and pray that apple will release a cell phone with not only itunes, but iphoto, address book, ical, and mail integration... they could through in one of those sweet little 4gb samsung flash chips while they're at it too... and a decent camera (unlike current motorola phones)...

*sigh* onboard camera with iphoto integration... how could it get any better than that...

It's just a Motorola e398.

It is such a rip-off also... $250 with a 2 year contract???? Give me a break!

You can get an unbranded one for $180 without contract and unlocked at www.myworldphone.com that will work the same way with cingular's sims (and T-mobile).

I've been using one for more then a year now.

But protecting iPod sales is something Steve Jobs (Apple) has to do. Apple's CORE business model is hardware. Everything else is just gravy. iTunes song sales, OSX sales and other items.

This will probably end up being a smart move. Apple gets to test the market without much R&D on their end. If the market is worth investing in I would expect to see a Apple branded product that is the whole iPod experience combined with a mobile phone. Selling the iPod/phone and just bundling a service provider is where the money is at for Apple.

So while this may not be what some people wantwd or expected, it just might be the right move.

If Apple doesn't do an iPod phone, then someone else will. You can already get the Nokia monster phone with 4 GB/1000 song capacity - bulky and not an iPod, but it shows that other companies are ready to encroach on Apple's territory if Apple doesn't get there first!

please, why are you blaming apple? motorola designs rubbish phones, all save the RAZR. please. STOP BLAMING APPLE. IT IS NOT AN APPLE PRODUCT. if apple made it's own phone it wouldn't get it out in the market, they had to go through the "orifices" (as hinted by steve jobs himself) of motorola and cingular to even have iTunes on a phone. 100 song limit, fair enough, blame apple, everything else, moto sucks, okay...? STOP BLAMING APPLE

Whose fault is it that it doesn't sync properly with a Mac? i have used moto phones on and off for the past few years and finally gave up because the software and syncing and usb connection was utter garbage. my sony ericsson T630 syncs beautifully via, Gasp! bluetooth with the Mac.

Moto is bloody dumb. Crap design of a phone, couldn't be bothered to get syncing with a Mac to work, took forever to get this rubbish out the door.

Huh... and now idiots like this columnist and business week are going to damage apple's brand image by blaming apple for this moto piece of t8rd...

Apple doesn't need to protect the iPod from MP3 cellphones, because MP3 cellphones inherently pose no threat to it.

Most phones don't pose a threat in their current form to the iPod and I don't think the ever truly will. But if there is enough demand to have a phone that plays your music, then so be it.

Apple needs (and is) looked into that market. That what this phone from moto is - a look into the market.

Surveying my desk as I right this, I have a mobile phone and an iPod sitting there. If I could have them combined with the right form factor then I would consider buying one.

Will phones ever pose a major threat? It all depends on how each individual uses each device. If they want them combined, then yes.

You realy hit the nail where it hurts. It must be one the downsides of this personal publishing thing.

I read an article yesterday that correctly pointed out that the phone manufacturers are ignoring the one real need that consumers of a certain class really want …a phone that does not make them navigate through 11 menus on small hard to read buttons while they are flopping on the floor trying to dial 911 with a heart attack in progress. it was pointed out that older people have a hard time wadeing through all the "features" and the present crop of phones (aimed at the kids) do not meet the needs of the sight challenged and sometimes confused elderly population. there are some folks out there that just need to make a call!