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iCell in the Works?
SirWraith writes "Ars Technica is running a story speculating on the possibility of an Apple cellphone." From the article: "At last week's CES, Motorola officially dumped Apple with its new ROKR E2 phone and its new iRadio digital music service. ... After the ROKR's lackluster launch, speculation abounded that Apple was saving the 'good' iTunes phone for itself, and the new 'Mobile Me' trademark lends credence to that line of thinking. At this stage of the game, it looks like Apple is moving in the direction of launching its own cellular service complete with its own lineup of phones (or phone, as the case may be)."
Portable device convergence has been obvious for years, with the inclusion of cameras, music players, video players, video calling, games etc... being crammed into mobile phones, it's unsurprising that Apple would want to segway its iPod market into the mobile phone market.
Which would you rather have? An iPod, or a phone with an iPod built in? If Apple doesn't capitalise on the current media and consumer 'love' for iPods, then the plethora of other devices with similar or superior function will destroy Apples market (and it's only so long before flash storage becomes comperable in capacity to drive based iPods.)
Apple could quite easily pull off a 'one phone' network not because it was technically superior or cheaper than other networks/handsets, but because Apple would do what Apple does best, give it a slick UI/customer experience and use their flair at advertising to buy the market.
Windows in 6 Bytes (IA-32) : 90 90 90 90 CD 19
Either way, I'll follow suit and ask how much longer will it be until the iPod is your computer, media player, internet access, cell phone, credit card, personal identification, financial recorder/advisor, taser, keyless entry and pace maker?
My work here is dung.
Another interesting development is, when Tiger originally came out, a new feature was added that no hardware currently takes advantage of. Tiger can rotate it's screen just like all other Table PCs and most PocketPCs.
Off hand I don't remember how to force it to do so, but Tiger does have this feature. Combined with the new trademark, we may see an Apple PDA and/or Tablet sometime this year.
It has some nostalgy to it (-:
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
Amongst the uses they include mobile phones.
Also can someone stop beating this rumour to death. They'll release it when they figure out a cool name for the product iCell just sounds lame, especially with the supersecret spreadsheet applications "Cells" (amongst a host of other rumours.) With the latest Apple nomenclature, it'd probable be MacPhone.
I have on this website and on another predicted that Apple will simply buy a mobile phone network. Before anyone argues that they don't have the market cap, I will say that smaller fish have been known to swallow biggers ones, and I believe that there are venture capitalists and banks that would be prepared to back Apple on this one. It's the only logical way to go.
Isamu Sanada is an industial designer who designs fictious
Apple products in his spare time:
http://www.applele.com/index.html
http://www.applele.com/pictures.html
I personally favor this iPhone design:
http://www.applele.com/pict_04hipod_r02.html
Almost better than the real thing!
Remember that trademark language is designed to avoid the possibility of other companies piggybacking on the term. "Mobile Me" could just be a suite of portable products that Apple is considering, but the company wants to avoid some cell phone-maker coining the term and creating brand confusion; thus it includes the language about telecommunication services.
Here is the actual excerpt from the trademark office about what Apple's filing covers. Notice how buried "cellular" is:
Computer services; computer data recovery; data analysis being computer services; computer programming; updating of computer software; maintenance of computer software, computer and communications networks, and computer systems; research and development of computer hardware and software; website design, creation, hosting services; customized imprinting and design of messages, correspondence and other written communication which are delivered by electronic transmission; computer on-line services for the search, retrieval, indexing and organization of data on computer and communication networks; providing use of on-line, non-downloadable software; providing use of on-line, non-downloadable software for communications via local or global communications networks, including the Internet, Intranets, Extranets, television, mobile communication, cellular, and satellite networks; analyzing data to detect, eradicate and prevent the occurrence of computer viruses; computer services relating to the protection of computer hardware, computer software, computer networks and computer systems against computer viruses, attacks, or failures; computer services for enhancing the performance, security and functionality of computer and communications networks; computer help-line services; technical support services relating to computers, computer software, telecommunications, and the Internet; consultancy and provision of information and advice relating to the aforesaid; all provided on-line from a computer database or provided from facilities on local or global communications networks, including the Internet, Intranets, Extranets, television, mobile communication, cellular, and satellite networks
the interface? Hard to say. To me one of the biggest appeals of the iPod is it has the best damn interface there is for a portable music player. Now is it possible to keep this interface while adding a phone interface? Of course I could be wrong, but I'm guessing no. All they need to do is to give Nokia a ring to find out just how difficult it is to make a phone that also does something else. Face it, humans probably aren't going to change significantly in the next 5 years so we will be stuck with the limitations our little fingers and faces give us. To me, that is the biggest obstacle facing convergance devices.
Monstar L
Don't get me wrong, I think that Apple can produce a winner in any tech area if it set its collective mind and resources to it. But, in my opinion, I don't really think this is something Apple would want to try. Apple has no technological experience in cell phone technology, other than what it might have learned from Motorola during their brief collaboration. The market is already awash in cell phones. Granted, few of them have the panache of the iPod, and they are bloated in pointless features that could be done much better. The profit margins for cell phones are much slimmer than the iPod, even for something high-end like the RAZR. Could Apple produce something with both iPod and cellphone technology crammed into it, and still charge a reasonable market price for it?
When Apple hit the mp3-player scene in 2002, there were some competing products from mostly small companies that had limitations due to the necessary tradeoffs. But, mp3-players were a nascent luxury item at the time, whereas cellphones are now, more or less, a commodity item. Almost nobody at the time had experience in mp3-player design and manufacture, whereas cellular phones are a mature product. Consider the players in today's cellphone market: Samsung, Motorola, Nokia, and about a dozen others that aren't as prevalent in the U.S. In comparison to the mp3-player market of 2002, the cellphone market of today is a cut-throught, kill-or-be-killed, Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle"-like world filled with a bunch of predators.
Even if Apple were to make an iCell, what would it do with it? Without a service provider to back it, the phone is dead-on-arrival. Will the allure of Apple's logo and the iPod brand be enough for service providers to risk the wrath of the other cellphone manufacturers? I don't know.
I guess if a convergence between the iPod and a cellphone is inevitable, then I'd prefer Apple to take a crack at it first (and don't cite the ROKR as a counterexample, that thing was a kludge of competing interests). Steve Jobs has often said that cellphones are poorly designed - trying to get the feature list make up for the fact that they aren't better thought out. Still, is this something that Apple really wants to be a part of?
Other speculation is that the play here isn't for a conventional cellphone. It's for VOIP.
:)
A conventional cellphone means that Apple would have to kowtow to all the carriers and their phone would be just one phone among a plethora of other, well-established outfits (Nokia, Moto, Samsung, whoever).
But a VOIP phone using wifi would enable Apple to sidestep being just another player and control the whole thing all the way down the line. Of course there is the minor problem of establishing a huge wifi network, but maybe this is where Google and friends come in, and anyway didn't someone say this is all wild, wild speculation?
Can't recall where I read this. Mabye yesterday on Slashdot
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