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Why the Rokr Phone Is An Important Failure
An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian has some interesting commentary on the new iPod cellphone." From the article: "The music-player module works like an iPod - though it lacks the clickwheel that makes its big brothers function so slickly. But overall, the impression is distinctly underwhelming. The word on the streets is that far from being the revolutionary device that will bring about media 'convergence', the Rokr is, well, just the sum of its parts. And that, it seems to me, is the most interesting thing about it."
That it's DRMed to death.
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
No, my point is that this suddenly puts Apple in the ring-tone buniness, which is, inexplicably, something like a 347 billion dollar a year business worldwide (go figure).
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Yeah, but even then it'd be a pain. You still wouldn't be able to feel your way around the keypad, "semi-blind" (?) or otherwise. The buttons would still have to be massively oversized for our fat, clumsy fingers, just like all other touch screen interfaces. In short, it's just the wrong solution.
I don't see why Apple needs to be married to the scroll wheel idea if it gets in the way of a device's other functions. Maybe they could replace it with a scroll wheel type thing on the side of the phone? Or make the LCD touch sensitive and make it respond to gestures (not cram it full of tiny buttons)? There must be something they can do.