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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."
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.
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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?