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Did Apple Sabotage the ROKR?
JPigford writes "The Apple Blog makes claim that Apple sabotaged the success of the ROKR so as to sway public opinion of MP3 cell phones in general...ultimately to drive more sales to the iPod. By mandating a 100 song limit on the ROKR and having the product flop, Apple was able to put a bad taste in the mouths of consumers so that not only do they drive more iPod sales, but they keep competitors from fighting back with their own MP3 phones."
I think people are perfectly happy with "only" 100 songs on their phone. I've seen several people with them already, and they just came out... In my observation, it took longer for the "razr" to "make it big" than is has for the "rokr." Maybe I'm wrong, but that seems to be the case to me...
But this is not an iPod phone. This is a phone with iTunes - big difference. If they had made an iPod with phone capabilities, there's no way it would've flopped. Heck, I'd be stanind in line for it the day it came it out.
Motorola's RAZR V3i (announced yesterday) would have likely been a better debut for iTunes on a cell phone. People know the RAZR, it's a very attractive device, and I think with the RAZR's current popularity that probably would have made more sense.
There is a simple explanation for the 100 song limit that has already been alluded to in various statements by Motorola and Apple.
The SanDisk Transflash drive in the phone is removable and replaceable. There is nothing stopping a ROKR owner from replacing the 512M drive with a much larger one (such as the 1G version). Therefore it makes perfect since to put an artificial limit on the number of songs. The USB 1.1 transfer rates are likely a factor as well.
I own one, and use iTunes on a nearly daily basis on public transportation to and from work. It's much more discrete than carrying around an iPod (two of which I also own) and is something I have to have in my pocket anyway. The 100 song limit doesn't bother me so much, and I refill it about once a week so the transfer rates, while annoying, are tolerable.
And yes, the phone's interface is a bit clunky, but I find most cell phones suffer from this affliction. My biggest gripe is what appears to be a lack of processing power. The command response borders on dreadful. A more complete j2me environment would have been helpful as well, but that's generally an issue with Motorola.
Hate to point out the obvious, but apple does like control over products using it's services. Is it really that far fetched?
Of course it isn't - if you're leveraging Apple's stuff, then prepare for them to protect their own best interests as well. However the idea that they were trying to sour consumers on the idea of integrated devices sounds a little bit ridiculous (though it earned that terribly-heavyweight site lots of views) - Consumers don't have such a disconnect between devices, and a good MP3 player, whether a part of a cellphone, a PDA, or a stand-alone, is a good MP3 player, and the bad ones are bad ones. Indeed, there are a lot of terrible stand-alone MP3 players by shoddy companies, but I'd hardly say that it "soured the market" such that the iPod couldn't happen. It sounds more likely that Apple wanted to limit how much the specific device ate into their own sales - all of the advantages of the iPod, but with a couple of limitations. It says or predicts nothinga bout competing devices.
Personally I think the time is long overdue for good integrated cell/pda/mp3 players. MP3 playing in particular is so trivial that it's absurd that we have such powerful electronics that we lug around, but they can't credibly and easily play mp3s. Usually the implementation is ridiculously short sighted (I got a PDA to double as an MP3 player, and everything worked great but the DAC was terribly low quality. A couple of cents and they destroyed that entire use).
I don't think the time is right for a "good integrated cell/pda/mp3 player". I think the problem is the life expectancy and different function of each of these items. I expect to keep a cell phone for the length of my contract (1-2 years) and it will serve me for work and personal use. My PDA is pretty much work only, but I may expect to hold on to it longer than a year or two. Finally, an MP3 player is strictly for my personal enjoyment and I will keep it as long as it works (or until something vastly superior comes along).
I want specialized devices, not a "jack of all trades, master of none" device and I don't think I am alone in this. So I think to say that a "good integrated cell/pda/mp3 player" is long overdue just isn't true.
Finding other idiots on
I want specialized devices, not a "jack of all trades, master of none" device and I don't think I am alone in this.
This line gets dragged out everytime this gets brought up, yet already our electronics have seen integration, and it is only going to continue - indeed accelerate. There is a point in PDAs, MP3 players, and cell phones, where it is good enough to completely satsify the majority of consumers - it is, in effect, a master of the realm if it satisfies the consumer, even if a specialized high-end stand-alone unit lets them add irrelevant effects to their music. I love my Digital Rebel XT, yet there are a lot of people for whom the digital camera in their cell phone is more than adequate (with extreme portability to boot).
My cell phone already has a pretty powerful processor in it, a good colour screen, a very capable data entry/navigation system, it's tiny, and has a fantastic battery. Flash memory is getting ultra cheap, so it's obvious that cell phones are increasibly going to integrate MP3 players (and FM radios), and even video and PDA functionality (of course you could say that PDAs are integrating cell phones - it's all the same thing). Why should I carry three different devices - all of them powered by general purpose CPUs (often the SAME CPU) just running different software, with a slightly different form?
Do you REALLY need this spelled for you? Apple got big bucks by letting Motorola use iTunes and they "crippled" it with 100 songs restriction dealso it would not cannibalize the sales of their regular iPods.
For fuck's sake, it's not rocket science. sheesh
At the moment I want to have with me at all times:
Phone/text functionality
Web browsing functionality
Portable hard disk/flash memory
Music player
Contacts list
Calendar
Task list
Email functionality
Note-keeping functionality.
Plus everything needs to be able to sync with my PC quickly and easily, along with sharing information like contact details. There is nothing which does all these to the quality I need. Yes, my phone happens to have a calendar and some music functionality. Yes, my iPod can store my tasks. If I push it my PDA can make phone calls. But all I want is one item, with one battery, and all those functions.
Only when something does all that in a single form (It can be as big as a 60gb iPod for all I care) will I accept other features, such as automatic song lookup. If it could grab net access from open hotspots and use that to send/retrieve emails and connect to my Skype account when possible, so much the better.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Apple did not sabotage this phone. That was done by the terrible twosome that is Motorola and Cingular.
First of all, the ROKR is (f)ugly. Had Motorola made their first iTunes phone a RAZR (which they are finally bringing to market for Q4 2005), it would've been a slam dunk. Consumers want the RAZR and adding iTunes functionality (as well as decent sized memory) only would drive up demand further. That was not Apple's fault, but Motorola's for acting greedy and assuming they could sucker in early-adopters to buy the crummy phone just for iTunes and then later get them to double-dip into purchasing an iTunes compatible RAZR model.
Then there's Cingular. Cingular would not allow the phone to use iTunes purchased tracks as ringtones. Wow, that was brilliant. Because all of us that actually have purchased tracks through iTunes would be stupid enough to pay twice the price on the same song cut in half just for the sheer pleasure of using it as a ringtone. That must be another brilliant idea dreamed up by that genius at SBC named Ed Whiteacre for sure.
There's something that would be painful to watch....a match of wits between Ed Whiteacre and Edgar Bronfman. In a version of Thunderdome hosted by the EFF.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
A lens of the size that will fit into a cellphone is never going to be good enough to take very good pictures. The quality is not a function of materials, but of size. The lenses on a dSLR aren't huge because people like their cameras to look impressive. You can build a really tiny 10 megapixel CCD that can work with a 6mm focal length and a lens that's a couple of millimeters in diameter, and end up with some really horrible-looking "high quality" pictures.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Apple has a stranglehold on the downloaded music market and the DRM format used by the biggest (their) service in the market. Sure, you can avoid that and try to build up your own competing service or try to rely on the small services that use open formats but that's not that effective.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
A product associated with the Apple brand name fails, and hence it must be a conspiracy? O-kaaay...
Apple took a risk by associating the iTunes branding with another company's cell phone. The phone didn't end up being a big seller -- perhaps because of the 512MB/100 song limit, or because it was bad timing for such a product, or because the market is already saturated with cell phones at $0 down that locks customers into a 2+ year contract.
Why in the world would Apple associate its brand name with an intentional flop? If they really wanted it to fail, they would have let someone else take the risk. It makes no sense to sully your own name... When was the last time that you bought a brand name device when you had already had bad experiences with something of the same brand name? Despite the fact that they were totally different devices, like a portable CD player and a TV, for example.
Additionally, the idea that Apple was trying to sour consumers on the idea of integrated devices seems particularily silly. The iPod itself is an integrated deivce, and becomes more so with every new version. First it just played music. Then it showed pictures. Now you can get ones that also play video. Why in the world would Apply try to convince people not to buy iPods? They'd be shooting themselves in the foot -- on purpose!
I'll bet you failed the section on the SAT that had the "A is to B as C is to ____" type questions.
I'll bet you feel like an idiot now
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.