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Apple To Unveil iPod Cellphone Next Week?
Mictian writes "Apple Computer is planning to hold a major press conference next week (September 7th) in San Francisco and the rumours say that it will be the unveiling of a new iPod cellphone (NYT). The phone would incorporate the popular iTunes software, be built by Motorola and marketed by Cingular Wireless. The companies have declined to confirm or deny the report, which would fit Apple's past pattern of being secretive to maximise the splash on announcement day."
maybe FINALLY apple will be taking advantage of the fact that they have ownership of iphone.org ( http://samspade.org/t/whois?a=iphone.org&server=au to&_charset_=UTF-8&btnGo=Whois )
-- hytmal
Looks like this ROKR phone is kinda the 2nd Generation iPod Shuffle.
- It is a small unit with minila but reasonable capacity via Flash
- Smaller than a pack of gum, more like a piece of gum stuck to your cell phone
- Now Suffle detractors get their screen and basically a free ride on the battery life of a much larger capacity battery too
- Still priced at a minimal premium
I have also read that the software people have seen is a music player only, not iTMS integration for buying tracks, so this will sync with
- iTunes
- Address Book
- Calendar events?
- To Dos?
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Quote: The companies have declined to confirm or deny the report, which would fit Apple's past pattern of being secretive to maximise the splash on announcement day.
Should read:
The companies have declined to confirm or deny the report, which would fit Apple's past pattern of being secretive to maximise the splash on announcement day, and sue everybody who brings out the real news for being correct and taking away the spotlight of apple.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
The advertisement for the event reads: "1,000 songs in your pocket changed everything... Here we go again". Do you really think that Apple would release a phone that holds 100 songs? My bet is a video iPod and iTunes 5 that will provide music video and movie content through the iTunes Music Store.
I'm so glad I ignored all of Verizon's "special offers," tempting me to renew my contract that will expire in a month.
If Apple/Motorola do release an iPod phone, and it's good, I'll ditch Verizon in a heartbeat. And I'll send them a letter telling them how much I resent their effort to control what kind of tecnology they'll allow on their network. They want to gouge me for songs the way they gouge you for ringtones. Screw that!
Was gonna mod this, but I decided to reply...
Motorola actually do make decent phones for talking to people on. My V3 RAZR has excellent clarity and (for me) a decent battery life. It comes with loads of other crap on it that I don't use, yes, including a camera, but it's easily the best mobile I've had (which list includes Nokias, Ericsson both pre and post Sony, and Siemens).
Most of the time when I get a dodgy-sounding connection, it's the other person's phone or just poor signal. But that isn't the fault of the handset developers, because most people I know have older phones, and live in areas with poor signals.
I've briefly tried current offerings from Nokia and Sony, and they also seem fairly clear when used in areas of good reception. Where they could definitely be improved, IMO, is that they're often too quiet, and that outside noise leaks in too much. Not sure how they might tackle that, but then I'm just a games programmer. Your mileage may vary, of course, but it does seem like handsets are improving in those core areas as well as the useless attachments...
Game dev and music blog
1995 called, it wants its mobile back.
Seriously, what handset do you have? Wait, you live in the UK - man, you need to talk to your provider. I get better quality reception on my mobile than on a normal landline. Go to carphone warehouse, they'll sort you out
Plus, by issuing a GSM phone, Apple is open to pretty much the whole world on one phone platform. CDMA is pretty much US only and companies like Verizon, while supporting tech like Bluetooth, only support it in a crippled version that they can fee their customers to death with.
The iPod works because it is a music player. It is not a music recorder. It is not a fancy music organiser. It is a music player. If you want to do anything 'clever' you plug it into a Mac and control it through a GUI that elegantly handles the complexity outside of the beautifully simple player. The iPod is also a portable harddisk. If you want to use it as such, you just plug it into a Mac, and it works as a slow, but effective harddisk.
The Apple phone should be ALOT like this.
It should be a phone. It shouldn't be a web browswer, PSP, or run my house. It should also be a data point. I should be able to do nothing more than pair my mac with my iPhone and it should just work from that point on as a data point (in the absense of anything faster / cheaper).
I'm in two minds weather you should be able to input any real data at all. I have never really used the PIM functions of my phone other than to read them. If I want to change/add/delete an entry I usually fire up the closest Mac, do it on that, then resync. The only thing I can really see me doing is adding a new phone number, and dialing and, at a push, SMS (but thats soooo 90s technology).
In that respect I could see the iPhone being almost a clone of the iPod Mini, just with a menu system aimed more at PIM data, and a jog wheel that doubles as an old style phone dialler - (no touch buttons would really make it stand out).
Apple have played and won in the music player market, because they understand that people that own MP3 players own computers too. Now that line isn't as clean in the phone market, but its not that far off - and for those of use that do own both, a phone that is designed around this paradigm is what is really missing from the market (not a phone that can access my iTMS account).
Of course this phone won't be anything like that, so it will fail. It will be another Motorola monstrosity that does everything in its power in make Cingular more money at the expense of usability, battery life and my patience. As such it will be another fish in the sea, albeit a fish with Apple branding.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
...will buy into this kind of gadgetry. Simply put, "we're not there yet" so why bother forking out cash for an inferior device? All of the crappy devices that are coming out today and constantly changing shape, form factor and interoperability are good for businesses and bad for you. You spend all this money on a device that's only going to last you two or three years at best. Somewhere within those two or three years something better is going to come out and you'll jump on that bandwagon forking out even more cash. meanwhile the investment in this device is lost. Whatever happened to the notion of building a device that was made to last? (ie: GOOD FOR THE CUSTOMER)
.001% of the population that actually needs a way to record video for a legitimate reason (paying job or possibly some sort of visual communication need) is going to do it another way that's better than a shitty camera phone.
Today cell phones are coming with cameras and various memory card slots to support things like taking pictures, making videos, playing music and the like. Some cell phones are also offering TV. It's the whole "convergence" thing being re-released early and often, as it were. Meanwhile the consumers are being duped into spending more and more money on things they don't need but are told that they do. Do you NEED a video recorder in your phone? Really? Do you actually **NEED** that? The
Do you really NEED a music player combined with your cell phone? You've been getting along without one all this time. Why the sudden change? I'll tell you why. Because your mind is owned by the business who want (and don't deserve) access to your money! Personally, I wouldn't buy any of this crap unless it does exactly what I need. A music player on it's own makes sense. A music player combined with the markedly useless features of a phone is an ill-implemented luxury. I think I'd be far more excited if a Sony PSP was combined with cell phone functionality. The whole point being that the best portable device that *SHOULD* be the lust object of all people, is the one that can do it all, and do it all well. Not some shitty hacked together mixture of a mediocre technology (iPod) and subpar technology (cell phone).
For a while, I was tempted by the Compaq iPaqs until I realized they aren't made for people like me. They're made for suits. Who cares about schedules, meetings, writing documents in Word and Excel? Not a tech manager, that's for sure. The ideal PDA for me is one that will respond to voice commands, have a wearable display, CLI interface, Unix based, support for alternative text input and wireless. But guess what? There's nothing like that on the market because the companies that make PDAs don't sell to people like me. They sell to mindless sheeple who want gadgets as fetishistic status symbols. They know that those people will keep buying and buying and buying. It's sickening.
Our culture has hopelessly damaged itself through capitalism. These days the only reson to exist is to buy or sell. If you don't want to participate then you have to live on the fringes of society and be labelled as an eccentric. No one does anything to further culture or society anymore. There was a time when people were concerned with making sure that everyone (especially the underpriveleged) was accorded some access to things that will enrich their lives, increase their knowledge and allow them to lift themselves up. Now, everyone is concerned with how much money they make and how their investments are doing. All the while not caring that their investments may be hurting other people. (Walmart is a glaring example)
So thanks Apple. Thanks Motorola. By creating this stupid new and destined to be obsolete in less than five years product, you've convinced more fools to part with their money. That money could have been used to help our society and instead it's going to go to some office monkey walking down the street to work showing off his snazzy new cell phone/iPod. Which he will promptly lose interest in when the next Motorola cell phone comes out that has a music player, video player, brain interface, whatever... It is a truly sad age we live in.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
As I said on Macslash,
From TFA: Apple Computer is preparing a major announcement next week, dropping hints of something as critical to the company's future as the release of the original iPod in 2001.
Which is hysterical. Apple hyped the hell out of that announcement, and afterwards, everyone was just saying "An MP3 player? That's it? There's tons already" at best and "No wireless, smaller than a Nomad. Lame" [slashdot.org] at worst. No one realized that one key feature--a great UI--would set it apart and allow Apple to dominate the industry. Who would have thought at the time that it would re-define Apple as much as the iMac did 3 years earlier?
So, this new announcement is only half of the story. The other half is the effect it will have on (((whatever))) over the next few years.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
From all accounts, it wasn't easy to find ANY carrier to carry the iPhone. Cingular apparently was the first to give in and give it a shot.
Another big factor is the ubitiqousness of GSM in Europe, which means that any phone can roam on anyone's tower, assuming roaming agreements are in place - you don't have several incompatible standards like you do in the US. This also allows commercial buildings to install GSM amps/repeaters, which increases indoor signal quality dramatically for every mobile inside - you'd need a box that speaks GSM, CDMA, TDMA, and whatever-the-hell-Nextel-uses to accomplish the same goal here.
Also, SIMs make it *much* easier to switch carriers in Europe, which means more competition, which means shorter contracts, lower prices, and better customer service. Oh yeah, and cooler phones.
Not that I'm jealous.
I know it's a joke, but they really do send people out to test reception in the same way as the commercial. I know an engineer from Verizon Wireless who was offered a chance visit France and Belgium, follow a predefined route, and every 10 miles call in to check the reception.
Vote for global prefs bug