Slashdot Mirror
Apple to Face iPod Clone Attack
chr1sb writes "The Age has a commentary piece outlining how Apple's domination of the online media market is continuing to grow, but speculating that significant competition from the likes of Nokia and Motorola will rapidly relegate Apple's presence in the market to a corner, just as clone manufacturing of IBM PCs dominated the initial success of the Macintosh. From the article: 'The iPod/iTunes system will move into a niche with Macintosh computers because Steve Jobs has again stuck with closed architecture and total control. This will happen quickly because mobile phones are being turned over about every year.'."
I have got to stop getting so surprised.
This will happen quickly because mobile phones are being turned over about every year.
Given the buying habits of people I know with the devices, so are iPods.
Funny, this post shows up right after I ordered an iAudio U2 after looking at the Vorbis Hardware wiki. Since Ogg Vorbis is the nerd's audio format, we nerds must have a Vorbis-compatible player, and Apple's offering, while stylish, doesn't have that. Unfortunately, a lot of portable Vorbis compatible players have limited storage size (mine is 1GB), but I'm never away from my laptop long enough to hear more than that much, and so can fill it up with new music when necessary.
Judging from what I have seen, no. Cell phone companies seem to want to LOCK people into buying songs over their networks. And, the two phones out that work with iTunes limit you to 100 songs. What would replace an iPod is an iPod with cellphone features. I don't need games on my phone. I like having the camera, but it is a pain to get pictures off it (I have a RAZR).
Give me something like a Treo, except in the size of an iPod or RAZR and I'd be happy to donate my iPod with video to someone.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Yes, and an Xbox will have to become a Playstation, lions will lay down with lambs, and Apple will be forced to give up on OSX and move to Windows.
I have a phone already. I have an iPod.
The important quote is buried towards the end of the article:
One device in my pocket or two? It's a no-brainer if you ask me.
Begun, this iPod clone war has.
Alan Kohler's piece in The Age just seems to be an unfocused piece of non-analysis. What was the point of all this? A warning against the siren call of the little white box? A broad survey of the digital media playback marketplace?
Oh, I see ... after a paean to Apple's iPod (well, he seems like a happy customer), he goes all gloom and doom as he thinks the mobile phone operators will be chomping on the iPod for their din din. Right.
Of course that's real perspective on the way the market is going, but Kohler doesn't provide and facts, figures, reasoned arguments, etc ... And someone needs to submit this to the Apple Deathwatch folks from TFA: "It is quite a thrilling time to be alive. We will witness the creation and destruction of a market dominance in the time it used to take to work up a business plan." Sure, um, ok.
Please, lets try not to promote, sloppy, lazy journalism and opinion pieces ... Kohler's sub should have sent this story back.
Correct me if I'm wrong (about my argument or the phones), but that looks more like cooperation than competition...
This year they [cell phone makers] will start releasing phones with the same storage as iPods -- up to 30 gigabytes. iPods themselves will have to become phones.
This makes perfect sense. We all know cell phones are amazingly easy to use with simple and consistent interfaces. I can't wait to run out of batteries from listening to music so I miss important phone calls.
There is also the consistent leapfrogging Apple seems to do. This generation of iPods might be able to be almost feature-matched by the next generation of cell phones, but by the time the next generation of cell phones come out the iPod will be a VCR/TiVO as well as a music player.
I'm sure journalists then will be saying the iPod will die because the next generation of cell phones will play videos.
__
Elephant Essays - Custom-created essays and research papers.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
When will people get over the Killer App mentaility? The iPod wouldn't sell nearly as well without network effects. I'll explain:
:(
iPod connects to iTunes, which does an excellent job of managing your music.
iTunes connects to the iTunes Music Store, which is a cheap(ish) and easy way to get tracks, as well as easily manage podcasts and subscriptions - if TV shows were available in the UK, I'd be using iTunes to get them, almost definitely.
iTMS connects with pretty much ALL the major music companies, so that when you buy tracks from X, it suggests Y and Z, which you may be interested in.
The combination of all of the above leads to Apple not only having market share, but DESERVING market share - their products are good, and if anyone comes up to me wanting to get into online music, I suggest iPod everytime.
However, as others have said, Ogg Vorbis support should be in iTunes, and either converted within iTunes or playable on the iPod. I can't see it happening anytime soon though
That only works if they can work with peoples existing music collections.
People have already bought a massive amount of music through itunes. Thus for those with an itunes locked in collection, it will need to be compatible with Apples DRM. So sony and motorola have to either partner with Apple, figure out a way to migrate Apples DRMed files to their service without an Apple partnership, or go after those individuals which have yet to purchase music through itunes, or who went with one of the competing services.
LetterRip
"The iPod/iTunes system will move into a niche with Macintosh computers because Steve Jobs has again stuck with closed architecture and total control. This will happen quickly because mobile phones are being turned over about every year."
Not if all the mobile phone users have died of cancer... ROFL! :)
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
Er... Isn't that exactly what Jobs is saying by having private file formats and DRM?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Er... Isn't that exactly what Jobs is saying by having private file formats and DRM?
Nope. Apple doesn't have a monopoly. They simply have no competition. The reason they have no competition is because other companies spend their time whining instead of building a better product.
Apple, meanwhile, just builds better products.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
If they want to kill the iPod, they have to kill iTunes, the iPod and MusicStore in one blow. The iPod success is not just a result of better hardware. It's the whole package, the iLife integration, the fact that it simply works without any hassle.
I organize all my music on my Mac, plug in the iPod, and whooops, shazam or whatever, it's all in my pocket without any technical fuzz.
This may not be the right crowd to voice this opinion in... But in this case I don't want umpteen technical options, and I can live with Apple as a music industry near-monopolist. As long as it works. If someone does it better, fine. Good luck. A colleague just told me that he finally could use his iPod without iTunes due to some hack. Nice! To me, that is a solution without a problem.
Techie stuff is work. Music is play!
And I'm not waiting for an iPod-wannabe (aka iPod-killer).
I'm waiting for something new.
-- somewhat_distant
The problem is that battery's won't keep up with both devices. My Cellphone can last 3-4 days with moderate usage (although if I do mobile web on it, the battery usage goes up). If I used it as a MP3 Player which I can already do, the battery would crap out in an hour...
To truely integrate a iPod and a cellphone, it would have to be as large as my last analog only cell phone which was quite large (I lived for a while without a phone). The reason is for the battery. The biggest thing holding a converged mp3 player and cell phone back is the battery. Only fuel cell tech or an advancement in bettery technology will drive this.
Gorkman
There is a plug in for iTunes that enebles playback and encoding of ogg files
http://www.illadvised.com/~jordy/
The long and short of it is, unless you can point to a million customers who would buy an iPod if it supported vorbis, and wouldn't otherwise, it's simply a non-issue to Apple. You are a vanishingly small proportion of their potential market.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
On the contrary, Apple got this market precisely because it had/has the best UI.
Argue whatever you like about particular pet features/compatibility, but Apple is #1 because they saw what an UI mess most MP3 players (both software and hardware) were and simplified them both so that normal people were capable of operating them without having to know anything about the underlying technology.
Very few competitors have even matched the simplicity of operation, and none have surpassed it yet. Until they do, consumers simply aren't going to be interested in jumping ship without massive financial incentive. And I don't see how anyone can undercut the iPod by a significant margin given Apple's huge volume discount on parts and continued willingness to forego profit for market share.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
It says:
"The only place you can easily buy material for your iPod, as opposed to stealing it, is the iTunes online store."
and refers to it as a "closed system".
Total nonsense. You can "easily by material for your iPod" on CD. Or, you know, from that dodgy Russian MP3 store.
But it's by no means a "closed system". I have 2,000 songs on my iPod and a total of 12 are from the iTMS.
According to Kohler's Wikipedia stub he has been at it for 35 years. He is ubiquitos here, turning up in the middle of our TV news with some of other spin graph to punctuate the too familar droning to the day's 'numbers'.
He is trying to become his own industry, in pale imitation of the likes of Crikey who have actually been prepared to do the hard yards and enjoyed some deserved success. But I've yet to hear Kohler say anything perceptive. Certainly this piece lacks any suggestion of coherence.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
Author of "Attack of the Clones", a.k.a "It's April 2 and I don't know what to write about, so I'll write one trashing the iPod and you can all listen to it on PODCAST which I advertise on the bottom of my page".
When Nokia and Motorola make a phone that's as easy to use as an iPod (have you seen mobile phone menus?), is as simple as an iPod (have you seen mobile phone navigation?), is as reliable as an iPod (my brand new Sony Ericsson crashes every 3 days, my previous Nokia would crash every two weeks or so), with the battery life of an iPod (how long does your phone last while playing sounds? mine lasts about 1 and half hours max), the capacity of an iPod (this one I belive will happen sooner than the rest) and the tight integration with iTunes, which is god's gift to music store software and jukeboxes, then I'll believe an article that an Australian hack in Melbourne wrote on the day of the Melbourne Formula one.
Who needs that much space. Yeah right. I have heard that one ever since I bought a HD floppy.
There have always been devices that do it all and there have always been devices that do one thing only.
There are washing machines that can also function as a dryer. Funny thing, do you know you can still buy JUST washing machines + a seperate spin dryer + a seperate warm air dryer?
Yes thats right, spin dryers still exist despite the fact that nearly every washing machine can do it that function nowadays. Just not as well as a true purpose spin dryer.
Oh and the whole camera phone argument is faulty. NOBODY uses a camera phone as a replacement for a regular phone. The camera phone is the replacement of the throwaway/rented camera. Its function is to be always with you for those moments when you do not have a regular camera with you.
In fact that is the function of all the extra's on the mobile phone. Games? Fun for when you got your phone but not a real game system. Calendar? Usefull for when you do not got access to your real calendar. Music? Nice for when you forgot your real music player.
Offcourse some people will be happy with the limited capabilities that their phone offers them. Just as some people are happy with a 10 dollar MP3 player they got from the bargain bin.
That is not Apples market. Apples market is what used to be the Walkman->Minidisc/CD-man market. They effectivly replaced sony for portable audio.
Oh and if you think your phone MP3 players is not going to have DRM your insane.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Lets see: The article claims that this year phones are going to be launched with 30gb storage, the same as an iPod.
Mmmm, what they really mean is that 1 phone is going to be launched, possibly this year, in japan, that is going to cost a fortune, eat batteries for lunch, not going to tiny while having the storage of the smallest 5th gen iPod.
Doesn't exactly sound like it is going to sweep the market. In fact the mobile phone market is incredibly fractured with not a single manufacturer having the kind of market share that apple enjoys in the mp3 player market. Let alone that a single new model will achieve anywhere near the penetration that iPods have.
Oh but there is the anology to the PC's where IBM clones pushed Apple into a corner. Yup that is true.
Except that how does this relate to mp3 players? The "clones" arrived first in this case. It was the tiny asian "clone" companies that launched first and only later did Apple join the party and even later did the real big boys like Sony get involved. If anything this is the exact opposite of what happened with PC's. This would have like if Compaq and the other clones had their PC market gobbled up by IBM.
For some reason when it comes to IT most people seem to loose common sense. Surely we all here remember how the N-cage was supposed to take over? Nintendo better watch out with its GBA.
Didn't happen.
Some people point to camera phones as to how the mobile phone can replace single purpose devices by combining them into the phone.
Except that this did not really happen. The camera phone did not replace regular camera's. Or do you really record your kids birthday party on your mobile phone? No the quality seperate camera market is still there. What the camera phone replaced is the throw away camera and incredibly cheap, good for 1 holiday, market. What it mostly did however was expand the market. There are now simply more cameras about then there were before.
I think the same will be true for mobile phone MP3 players. They will partially replace the very cheap players and partially expand the market so that people who never owned a portable music player before will have one now.
The iPod is as threathend by the mobile phone as the SLR camera is by the camera phone. Or the GBA is by the N-cage. Or the computer is by the PDA.
Offcourse the PDA is under threath by the smart phone and one day it may be true that the mobile phone will be so powerfull that it can replace the iPod. Looking at current tech I think that is still years if not decades away.
But a headline off "Business as usual" does not sell ads does it now.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This is clearly one in a row. Follow the money and the ads.
Should become "Apple's iPod survives sustained Clone funded Media Attack"
'nuf said.
--------
* Sigh *
"Nope. Apple doesn't have a monopoly. They simply have no competition."
This is not accurate. Apple has a potential monopoly because they have secured almost 90% of the market and refuse to license their DRM. That's monopolistic behavior. Can you imagine if Microsoft, with their massive market share on PCs didn't license WMA/WMV, and insisted those formats be used with its systems?
It's important to separate logic from fanboy rose-colored glasses. Apple has made an incredible product, but has already been slapped in France (who cares, I know), and the US judiciary has already approved a motion to go forward with antitrust action against them if someone should so choose.
The question for Apple is this--if they open up their DRM, will people still buy iPods? I think the answer is absolutely yes, and they should stop being so stubborn about something that could potentially cripple them in the courts. If they thought scratch-tastic Nanos were an annoying issue, hundreds of lawsuits around the world will be worse.
That was cooperation all right, but it fell through. I remain hopeful, though, for events and reasons completely different. And my hope even comes with its own half-assed speculation. Follow:
Apple and CompUSA got together many years ago to create an Apple Ghetto Store within each CompUSA. It sucked. Apple pulled out, created their own retail outlets at a time when critics said they were crazy to do so, and they took off.
Apple and Motorola got together years later to create an iTunes/phone. Judging by the reports, it sucked too. Apple pulled out.........and the rest of the story hasn't been written yet. But you can probably guess the rest.
It's a wonderful dream, but probably won't work. To create the standalone Apple Stores, they needed retail space in many different malls, with relatively little competition between them (distance is a limiting factor on competition). Mobile phone carriers have almost total overlay of coverage, which makes them bitterly competetive. Furthermore, they're competitive in a "screw the customers who want to leave" scorched-earth kind of way. To make the sales of an iPhone work, they'd need either to set up their own network (and they don't have enough experience with that yet) or build the iPhone to work with existing digital networks, which will do their damndest to lock whatever phone the customer tries to put onto it seven ways to Sunday.
I don't think Apple wants to build a phone which the customer will want to throw away annually, even if it means a boost in sales.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
It might be true for current gadgets, but I don't see why it will be true for future gadgets. Is this just lack of fantasy on your side?
I have no problem imagining a single gadget the size of a 9 volt battery that does everything very well and then some, including serving web pages and running seti@home, all while fed by a betavoltaic batery that lasts 20 years. Actually, looking back at the last 20 years, I find this all rather plausible, and I am only annoyed by the wait.
Instead of making ad hominem attacks on everyone who disagrees with you, why don't you add something of value to the discussion?
The iPod has dominated the personal music player (PMP) market since its introduction in 2001. In this quarter alone, iPod sales are expected to approach 9 million units.
With sales numbers like those, it's easy to see why other companies have been trying (unsuccessfully) for the last five years to take market share away from Apple. It's equally easy to see why Apple has the R&D budget to stay one step ahead of its rivals.
What you don't seem to grasp is that the iPod devices drive music sales on iTunes. Apple can afford to break even or to lose money on each iPod sale because the average iPod buyer loads the iPod up one $.99 song at a time through iTunes.
To compete with Apple, a company would have to develop an business model in which PMP sales were subsidized by later music sales. That means creating a viable iTunes competitor. So, how do you convince the record labels to sign on with your music store and how do you get prices from them that are as good as what they give Apple? You don't have an installed base of millions of PMPs, so they aren't looking at a tempting market that they need to reach. Many other companies have already tried to compete with iPod and failed, so what makes your venture more likely to succeed?
But let's suppose that you have pictures of all of the major record execs having sex with donkeys and that's how you get the same music availability and pricing that Apple does for iTunes. Now how do you convince your company's management that you can out-iPod Apple? How do you get them to give you the massive sums of R&D money needed to build something that is as pleasing to the consumer as the iPod? How do you make them believe that your efforts will be any more successful than those of Creative Labs, Archos, Samsung, SanDisk, or the myriad other players, most of which came and went with little fanfare?
Now how do you convince your vendors to provide you sweet deals on everything for lithium-ion batteries to headphone jacks? How do you get the prices for components that Apple does? Toshiba knows that they will sell 30+ million hard drives through Apple, so they are willing to give Apple the best pricing possible. How do you propose to get that kind of pricing? By saying "we're going to sell a lot, too"?
I've owned personal music players from Creative Labs, Rio, and Archos because I was loathe to give Apple my money. But the fact is that the other players were large, clunky, and poorly constructed when compared with the iPod offerings. Go into any Best Buy and look at the personal music players. The iPod simply looks like a product from five years in the future when compared with the competitors.
While I expect that some well-heeled competitor will come along to challenge Apple, I don't expect it to happen soon. The only way that I see it happening anytime soon is if a court rules that Apple's iTunes/iPod bundling is illegal and orders Apple to open up its DRM and allow competing products to use iTunes for music purchases.
Hopefully, that was a lot more thought-provoking than the "Waah!" stuff that you posted.
There'll always be a market for standalone mp3 players, but I think the article is right to suggest that that market is going to get squeezed by mobile phones, mainly at the low end.
My Wife's new mobile phone has half a gig of memory in it which she can store songs on, and she can upgrade it with a memory stick if she wishes. The phone came free with a new phone contract and she's not paying any more that she was on her old plan.
So she's basically set up with an mp3 player without having to spend any more money than she would have anyway. Sure, she'll probably get a memory stick to boost the capacity, but that'll still not cost her that much, and considerably less than an iPod nano with a similar capacity would.
Now, I'm sure all of you with high-capacity iPods are scoffing at my Wife's meagre storage space on her phone, but many people just don't need that high capacity. My current mp3 player (A Rio Carbon) holds 5Gb, and I don't have any space problems on it. It'll not be long before phones with a similar capacity are commonplace.
So for those who don't require high capacity, a phone with mp3 playing is going to be an obvious choice; especially as you then only have one object to carry around.
I think it's interesting to compare it with low-end cameras and PDAs; Camera phones nowadays are approaching the quality that they can be a reasonable replacement for the low-end pocket point-and-shoot cameras, and phones now do many of the simpler functions of a PDA. Those who wish for a large collection of music at their fingertips will stick with their iPods, but many others (and I suspect this is a large chunk of the market) will migrate to mobile phones.
...the "convergence" buzzword since the early 90s. It was bullshit then, and it's bullshit now.
When you cram the functionality of a handful of different devices into a single form factor, you get something that does a lot of jobs poorly due to the inherent compromises that must be made. Word quickly gets out, and the product dies. The most glaring example I can think of right now is the original N-Gage.
History has shown that despite what the asshole markeeters claim as they try to cram "convergence" down our throats, people don't mind carrying multiple single-purpose devices that do their jobs very well-- especially if the alternative is a piece of shit that almost does everything they need it to do.
~Philly
Because there are times when a mediocre quality picture with no zoom is acceptable for a few one-off pictures.
The camera phone is increasing in pixels, but still has poor quality, lots of digital enhancements rather than using quality optics, a poor interface, lack of features, lack of flash, lack of any optical zoom, red eye removal, etc.
Having a few bells and whistles is always a plus, but in the end, a phone needs to work. Combining a phone and a PDA is a great idea, as the device is always on you and there's a lot of cross (address books for example). Crossing the camera is for the occasional time when you need to grab a picture (insurance, profile picture, fully scene, etc) where you wouldn't carry a camera... but don't think for a second that you can replace a camera with a phone.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
The reason people buy iPods and love them so much is the same reason people buy pre-packaged vacations or use travel agents. Sure, you could go book your tickets with an airline, find a hotel and book that, research a dozen locations to go to at your destination and when they are open, and do all the logisitcs, or you can just have somebody else do it. Sometimes its worth the fee to save your time.
Sure, my iPod cost more than a lot of other stuff on the market, and it doesn't have video, but it's so freaking easy to use. Now, I love playing around with tech toys like the next guy, but ease of use is ease of use. Pop in a CD, rip it and file it away without worrying about setting up the files and folders correctly. If I hear an artist Ilike, I can download their latest album in 4 or 5 clicks instead of driving over to Best Buy. Pop my iPod in, and it puts all my new music on, updates my playlists, puts my photos on, and updates my Outlook calendar. Simple. I didn't have to do anything. I didn't have to open up 4 programs like I would have to with other playesr or a cell phone.
So why would I possibly buy one of these merged cell phones and music players. All of their synching software I've seen in bloatware with extremely slow upload speeds. Very few allow native mp3 playing, so you have to run their converter for half an hour. And given my level of trust for the cell phone industy, I can only assume there is some low level spyware involved so that I can get some fun text messages telling me I'll enjoy the next Black Eyed Peas single. Then I can hop in my car where my cell phone won't play to my radio, so I hve to use headphones. My battery will be dead by the time I get to work. Gee, what a fun end-user eperience that will be.
All of that being said, I really do want to see what a rael iPod killer would like like. My bet is it will probably come from Apple themselves (PowerPod?). In the mean time, I'm happy with a product that I get a kick out of playing with that is also simple enough for my mother to use (seeing 60 year old woman who can barely surf the internet be able to plug in a Shuffle and use it correctly is amazing).
It's not stupid. It's advanced.
I will not buy a cell phone with music capabilities. Or, if not given a choice (something the cell phone networks seem to just LOVE to do), then I will disable/ignore the music features.
When are the cell phone companies going to realize that most of us just want a simple voice communications device? We don't want music, video, web, still camera, video camera, etc. etc. in our phones. All of these features are seldom used and clutter up the interface, not to mention sucking battery. We want a compact phone with as much battery life as possible and the best sound quality possible, and that's IT.
Apple doesn't make it's money on the iTunes Music Store. They make the money on the iPods themselves. The RIAA gets the benefits of your iTunes purchase.
Apple is so safe with the iPod that it's not funny. Just look at how many people they're licensing the dock interface to. It's available in new cars, in aftermarket cart stereos, it's in all kinds of accessories. The prevalence of the dock connector simply makes the iPod more desirable than its competitors, and the fact that it's proprietary gives Apple a lot of safety.
Microsoft has implemented their "play anywhere" USB interface, and some car stereo makers are starting to implement it. Eventually, it will provide an alterenative to the iPod dock, but it looks to be somewhere in 2007 before it achieves any uptake.
The catch is that the "generic" MP3 player makers will be fighting each other on price, while Apple will be able to maintain much better margins on the iPod. So the iPod will eventually drop some market share, but it will remain profitable for Apple. Meanwhile, Creative and iRiver and all the others will be beating their brains out trying to undercut each other.
He who owns the interface owns the market. I didn't say it's good, it's just a fact of life.
I disagree that iTunes music store is excellent.
1. iTunes music store has a selection of music no better than what can be bought on amazon.com (on CD) - it should have stuff that is out of print - particularly if it is out of print but was once available on CD.
2. iTunes music store should let you redownload music you've bought for no charge.
3. iTunes music store should offer apple lossless downloads - this is particularly important because if I wanted to switch to a non Apple player in the future I would want to be able to reencode from the raw PCM and not have to do any transcoding (or worse be locked into, or even theorecticeally have music my orphaned by Apple)
Until these issues are fixed I only buy from emusic.com (for price and -APS encoding) or on CD (small price premium for freedom)
if you wan't to legitimately buy major label music for your ipod over the you have to use itms
There are these things called compact disks......
90% of what market? Music? MP3 players? DRM? Got any links to back that up?
Can't be the music market, because the last time I checked, online music accounts for roughly 6% of all music sales. So what...? I can now sue Netflix now because they control the vast majority of online movie rental.. mailing...uh video... something?
DRM? Again, Apple doesn't ship 90% of systems shipping with DRM. Windows DRM and DVD-CSS certainly exceed Apple's insignificant share of the market there...
MP3 players? Ok, you got me there. Apple sells so many iPods, part suppliers can't keep up with demand forcing smaller players to pay higher prices for what little is left. Bad Apple, bad! Stop selling things people want!
Easy to use software *IS* special!
"Do people really think that apple having "easy" to use software is so special? Nothing Apple does is really all that unique, it's just a matter of quantities of production and spending the time to develop the interface right."
And that *is* unique. The UI on most cell phones suck. I don't know one software engineer with a cell phone who wouldn't pay a reasonable amount of money to get the firmware source code - even if only for the UI part of things - so that they could hack a decent UI onto the thing.
I haven't seen one cell phone with a decent UI (or I'd own the thing, no matter who I had to sign up with to get it).
-- Terry