Ioman
12-20-2004, 09:52 PM
An Apple executive has revealed that the company is working on a cell phone capable of playing songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store, due for release during the first half of 2005, in collaboration with long-term partner Motorola.
In an interview with Forbes, the company's vice president for applications, Eddy Cue, said Motorola and Apple would "have something coming on this in the first half of 2005 and we're definitely on schedule for that. Hopefully you'll be able to see more about it soon." Although Cue declined to comment further on potential dates for the product, it has heightened speculation that the product will get its first public showing at January's Macworld Expo in San Francisco, when Apple CEO Steve Jobs is due to deliver his regular keynote speech.
Apple initially announced it was working with Motorola to bring iTunes compatibility to a mobile phone in July, when Jobs appeared via video link at a Motorola event held at the company's Chicago headquarters. At the time, Jobs claimed the product would not compete with Apple's iPod, but would instead provide the ability to take a limited number of songs with you, rather than a whole music collection.
However, with the price of flash memory falling rapidly and thus the amount of storage available to cell phones increasing, an iTunes-equipped mobile could provide up to 1GB of music – making it a potential competitor against low-end flash-based music players. Apple's Cue confirmed that the phone would be a consumer priced product, rather than competing with high-end phones based on Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system. "It has to be a phone in the middle-tier of the market, not a $500-tier phone. It has to be very seamless to use. And we're very happy with the results," he claimed.
Details of the phone are scarce, with sources close to Apple and Motorola saying that the project has been closely-guarded since its inception, with only a handful of executives shown working prototypes. However, it is believed that the product will be marketed as a Motorola phone, rather than as an Apple product. Whether the phone will be capable of downloading songs directly from the iTunes Music Store or will require connecting to a Mac or PC is also unknown, although – given the slow download speeds that can be achieved on most networks – it is more likely that the phone will synchronize with a desktop computer in a similar way to the iPod.
If Apple shows an iTunes-capable phone at Macworld Expo, it may prove to be a music-packed keynote. It has been strongly rumored that the company will also show its own low-end flash-based music player, a rumor backed by recent comments by a Toshiba executive that it was supplying flash memory to Apple for just such a product. And it is widely expected that Apple will also up the capacity of its iPod mini to 5GB, from the current 4GB.
In an interview with Forbes, the company's vice president for applications, Eddy Cue, said Motorola and Apple would "have something coming on this in the first half of 2005 and we're definitely on schedule for that. Hopefully you'll be able to see more about it soon." Although Cue declined to comment further on potential dates for the product, it has heightened speculation that the product will get its first public showing at January's Macworld Expo in San Francisco, when Apple CEO Steve Jobs is due to deliver his regular keynote speech.
Apple initially announced it was working with Motorola to bring iTunes compatibility to a mobile phone in July, when Jobs appeared via video link at a Motorola event held at the company's Chicago headquarters. At the time, Jobs claimed the product would not compete with Apple's iPod, but would instead provide the ability to take a limited number of songs with you, rather than a whole music collection.
However, with the price of flash memory falling rapidly and thus the amount of storage available to cell phones increasing, an iTunes-equipped mobile could provide up to 1GB of music – making it a potential competitor against low-end flash-based music players. Apple's Cue confirmed that the phone would be a consumer priced product, rather than competing with high-end phones based on Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system. "It has to be a phone in the middle-tier of the market, not a $500-tier phone. It has to be very seamless to use. And we're very happy with the results," he claimed.
Details of the phone are scarce, with sources close to Apple and Motorola saying that the project has been closely-guarded since its inception, with only a handful of executives shown working prototypes. However, it is believed that the product will be marketed as a Motorola phone, rather than as an Apple product. Whether the phone will be capable of downloading songs directly from the iTunes Music Store or will require connecting to a Mac or PC is also unknown, although – given the slow download speeds that can be achieved on most networks – it is more likely that the phone will synchronize with a desktop computer in a similar way to the iPod.
If Apple shows an iTunes-capable phone at Macworld Expo, it may prove to be a music-packed keynote. It has been strongly rumored that the company will also show its own low-end flash-based music player, a rumor backed by recent comments by a Toshiba executive that it was supplying flash memory to Apple for just such a product. And it is widely expected that Apple will also up the capacity of its iPod mini to 5GB, from the current 4GB.