Motorola Announces E1060 Phone With iTunes Support

amichalo writes "Topping today's earlier news that Nokia and MS are collaborating on digital music in a cell phone, Motorola announced the E1060, a cell phone available Q4 2005 that supports MPEG-4/WMV/WMA/MP3 formats. Interestingly, Motorola is not locking themselves into Apple's iTunes, but also support Real Player. Reuters has more."

Comments

Why?

[Quasar1999]

I must be a dying breed... I want my phone to make calls with, I want my iPod to listen to music too, and now you guys are blurring the lines again... Stop it... I can see it now... in a year, I'll have an iPod that does PDA stuff, plays music, is a cell phone, has a 10 megapixel camera in it, and opens my garage door.

Why can't I have a phone that just works as a phone... and an Mp3 player that just plays music, nothing else? I thought apple was going in the right direction with the shuffle... it's small, and does just one thing... play music... is that too much to ask of phones?

Re:Why?

[path_man]

Mod parent up!! -- this might be "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." but the main thing we nerds want is STUFF THAT WORKS.

The best example of the converged device that STILL isn't worth a damn is the all-in-one printer which faxes, scans, copies, and prints... not a one of those does it do well. Oh, and by the way, with phones you have the added problem of low price, battery life, portability, and god forbid, if I lose the damn thing I don't want the be SOL because all the stuff I use (mp3 players, PDA, phone, etc.) is missing.

As usual, the manufacturers have created a solution without a problem. I have yet to hear somone at the gym say "Boy, I'd sure like my music player ring and have all my calendar/contact information as well". These things are a solution looking for a problem

Re:Why?

[Aqua OS X]

True, but carrying a ton of garbage in your pockets can be VERY annoying... and that's what industrial designers are trying to solve. My pants are full of ridiculous garbage. My Costanza sized wallet, my keys, my phone, my iPod, headphones, my pen drive, a ton of change, and, as I recall, some testicles buried some place in there.

I think a media player / camera / phone isn't a bad idea... if it were done properly. And no one has really done it properly... yet.

Re:Why?

[generic-man]

I bought a Motorola v180 for $80 cash -- you can get it for free or less (really!) with a contract. It's a phone. It's small, lightweight, durable to the point where you don't panic if you drop it, and it has a readable color screen.

It even has a USB port if you want to hack it. It does not, however, have a substantial PDA (basic phone book and datebook), have a camera, play MP3s (as far as I could tell), or do any other fancy stuff.

Nobody's forcing you to buy a camera phone. And if the v180 is too ritzy for you, T-Mobile offers a Nokia 6010 for even less money.

You can get a phone with no features if you really want. Quit this "I just want a phone that makes phone calls" bitching.

Re:Why?

[blackmonday]

Every time we talk about cell phones, the highest modded post is a version of the one I'm replying to. Don't want new features? Fine, stick with your old phone. Or, buy a used one. Or, buy a new one that doesn't have all the bells and whistles (yes you can still find simple phones in ample supply). Plus, Some of us would like to carry fewer gadgets in our pockets.

I thought this was Slashdot, a gatehring of people excited about new technology. Why do we mod up people who want to live in the past?

Re:Why?

[Tsiangkun]

also has better reception than the "dumb" phone with the tiny mono screen that it replaced

And this would be the point of the discussion, from my POV.

Where is the phone that can stand on it's own and say

"I am a kickass phone, I get better reception that the cheap alternatives to the model containing a spare kitchen sink, my batteries last 3 months on standby or 48 hours of talk. I was designed to be a better phone, not a better way to carry eight devices in your pocket ! "

Re:Why?

[ezthrust]

While I understand your desire for "just a phone" some of us see the value in carrying less $500 gadgets around with us. I also understand your frustration with the lack of ability to make these things do what they do well. But IF they do succeed and make a unit that plays with the ease of an iPod and makes calls as well as any of their other phones, then what harm does it do the market?

If variety is good for the software market, as the saying goes here on /., and innovation is good, Then why is the same not good for the phone market? I see people getting really uptight when phone manufacturers try new things. Seems a little conservative to me.

Keyboard?

[NEOtaku17]

No QWERTY? Won't that limit all that instant messaging and e-mailing you could do with it, and before someone tells me about the size being a consideration you should check out my phone: the Motorola A630. Small does not mean no keyboard.

Another...

[Robotron23]

Another day, another useless piece of gadgetry. 2005 is turning out to be another year in which the electronics industry as a whole adds to its products useless features, and expects (sensibly) consumers to lap it up and beg for seconds.

Re:Another...

[Hawthorne01]

No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

/.'s ability to predict the next hot consumer toy is nothing I'd bet the farm on... ;-)

'bout time

[nborders]

Man this took them forever. Call me a simple developer, however how hard can it be to add some more flash memory, better sound output through a headset, and modify the hardware to read MP3s. I've been pissed at the phone industry for nearly 2 years for not doing this. ~n

Re:iPod Killer

[Hawthorne01]

512mb storage and (possibly) up to 1gb on an SD card? I can see it competing with the iPod Shuffle.
This phone is useful to me because I usually have a cell phone, while my iPod is mainly for my drive into work and while at work. To have a 5 hours worth of music with me at all times would really make the time I spend waiting in line, at appointments, etc, move faster. You can't always carry an iPod, even a Shuffle, but you can usually have your phone with you.

Where's my OGG support?

[ScytheBlade1]

Really? I want my OGG support! Plus, sticking it in a product like this might get some more users of it, and make it just a little more used (another nail in the MP3 coffin).

Oh no!

[Cinematique]

Quick! Grab your umbrella! There's about to be a flood of crotchedy old techies who think mobile phones that serve more than one purpose are crazy! Crrraaazaaay!!

Seriously though, I'm not the only one who WANTS to see the day where we have a phone, iPod, and PDA all in one device... right? Sure, bring on the "jack-of-all-trades master-of-none" arguement... but carrying around one device that does it all is better than having multiple gadgets. So what if the current creations need a little more R&D... it's not like basic phones can't be purchased anymore.

You aren't looking at the problem right

[hellfire]

I, for one, welcome the chance to have an MP3 player on my phone. Why? Because I don't want to carry 4 portable devices. 1 phone, 1 camera, 1 MP3 player, and one palm pilot. That's effectively what I want and it's what the Treo 600 and 650 give me. Well actually no, I don't really want the camera, but I can't get a high end phone these days without it so I'll deal for now.

Frankly, I'm going to spend the money on the phone, and I like having a portable entertainment and workstation on my hip at all times, which is what it is. I can take care of simple work tasks just from that phone, and i can entertain myself very easily while waiting or traveling. The Mp3 player doesn't store that many songs and i need a memory card, but hell I don't carry with me that many Mp3s! I'm never going to fill up a 10,000 song player... or even a 1,000 song one.

Just because you don't want one doesn't mean other people don't. So far the only thing I don't like about those phones are the cameras. Everything else does in fact work great.

Re:You aren't looking at the problem right

[Gob Blesh It]

Yeah, phone interfaces are pretty perverse. I find my phone (Sony Ericsson T610) mildly annoying at best, and apparently it's one of the better ones out there!

That's why I'm waiting for Apple to develop a cell phone. It'll be sleek, elegant, easy to use and cost only half my salary. :)

Re: Keeping the quarterly numbers up

[drinkypoo]

The OP is a troll. You can find PLENTY of phones that are not stacked with features. You would be hard pressed to find one without a web browser, but that's just software. It's trivial to get phones without bluetooth, with no camera, without a case designed primarily for easy housing replacement, without a joystick, et cetera. YHBT. HTH, HAND.

Ridiculous

[Qwavel]

Please, no more anouncements of products that aren't expected for 3Q's.

If it is currently expected in Q4 2005, that means 50% it will be cancelled before it comes out, and 50% chance it will ship 6 months late. EVen if it does ship on time, announcing it today doesn't make much sense (it guess it makes pr sense, but not practical sense).

Re:Hint:

[dabadab]

Yeah, no one will buy these as noone has bought the Nokia 6230 that has an MP3 player and can be extended with MMC cards.
Oh no, wait, it sells like hot cakes.
And, of course, you can record phone calls and ambient noise (that's called "dictaphone") with it. And I, for one, find it a lot more easy to deal with the management of only one battery.
I don't get your point with regards to pausing the mp3 during a phonecall - I guess that's a feature that shows why convergence is good: if I receive (or make) a call, the mp3 is automatically paused and resumed after the call.

Before You Say 'Another Useless Gadget'...

[fupeg]

Go down to your local mall and its food court. Take a look at the teenagers down there and what they are doing. There has become a huge culture built around cell phones -- talking (of course), text messaging, picture mail, wallpaper, and especially ring tones. I've seen primetime TV ads lately for companies selling animated cell phone wallpaper. It's big business. The iPod, as amazingly popular as it is, is just starting to become a fixture of youth culture. So there just might be some serious money to be made in the convergence.

Re: Keeping the quarterly numbers up

[DarkVader]

Yes, but I like those features fine.

I want a big one.

Nobody makes a phone big enough for me anymore. i want a phone that extends from my ear to my mouth, and can rest comfortably on my shoulder. I'm not interested in putting it in my pocket, I'll clip it to my belt, thanks. But I'm sick of small telephones.

Oh, and one more little feature that I want - GOOD VOICE QUALITY. I can almost live without big for that one.

answering machine

[cas2000]

who cares about a phone with non-essential frills like camera, games, or mp3 (or whatever) player?

what i want is a mobile phone with a built in digital answering machine, similar to what you can get for under $50 for a land line....or even better, use a 128+MB flash "disk" and mp3 or ogg to encode the recorded messages

i suspect that i'll never see one, though, because telcos are the biggest customers for mobile phone manufacturers, and telcos definitely do not want to lose the revenue stream that they get for charging by the minute for people to retrieve their voice mail.

i resent paying those fees, and i certainly do not want MY messages stored on THEIR systems - i want them on MY machine.