News
Motorola CEO: Apple building smart phone
Motorola CEO Ed Zander added to the ongoing speculation of Apple’s intent to create its own mobile phone with comments today to CNET News.com. “We know that they are going to build a smart phone—it’s only a matter of time,” he said after his presentation today at Technology Review’s Emerging Technologies Conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Also, as a Motorola representative did earlier this week, Zander downplayed his comments about the iPod nano, claiming they were “taken completely out of context. We have a great relationship with Apple. I’ve known Steve Jobs for 15 years. Sure, there is some tension there. We have the Rokr, and they have the Nano. They are a competitor as well as a partner.”
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1
“Competitor”, he says.
hehehehehehe. That’s funny.
Kind of how I suppose it’s technically possible for a three-legged mutt with leperosy and a runny nose to compete in a race with a Ferrari.
Posted by MirandaKali in D.C. on September 29, 2005 at 4:07 PM (PDT)
2
Interesting… an anonymous user sent in to MacRumors (via their News submission page) saying: “A friend of mine who works at Apple industrial design dept. tells me work on an Ipod cell phone has recently started while work on an LCD version of the Shuffle is drawing to a close….” so maybe it is true… we’ll just have to wait until January. I’d buy an iPhone :D
Posted by Kevin on September 29, 2005 at 4:49 PM (PDT)
3
hehehehehehe. That’s funny.
Everytime someone mentions Motorola now on iLounge its gets villified and denigrated, just because the CEO is a loudmouth.
Apple sold a few million ipods last year. Motorola sold 200 *million* phones last *quarter*. That’s up 35% on the previous year. It had a few dodgy years but has now managed to contain Nokia. It sells many dozens of models worldwide. It has a manufacturing and supply chain (not to mention a retail channel) that dwarfs, absolutely, anything Apple can put together, or is likely to put together for many years, if ever.
Posted by Demosthenes on September 29, 2005 at 5:17 PM (PDT)
4
??
http://www.flickr.com/photos/79853121@N00/47875390/
Posted by Number 5 on September 29, 2005 at 6:56 PM (PDT)
5
Interesting snippets on the article:
“Zander demonstrated one unnamed prototype device that can receive and play music videos. The device flawlessly played a Gloria Estefan video but would not shut off. Zander tried to silence the wayward device by unsuccessfully attempting to remove the battery. He finally called an offstage assistant for help.”
He can`t even shut off their own phone???
“We know that they are going to build a smart phone—it’s only a matter of time,�
Well ... in that case .... So long, Moto
Posted by Neil on September 29, 2005 at 9:08 PM (PDT)
6
Yuk, that flickr picture is just horrible. The display looks like a Motorola, i.e. horrible, and it has no click wheel.
I would say ‘iPod phone’ must have a click wheel - the question is, whether Apple would be brave enough to give it ONLY a click wheel, and no keypad? After all, your main contacts will be synchronized with the computer, and can be picked from a list. If you really, really needed to enter a number, you could still do it with the click wheel, albeit in a fiddly kind of way.
I think history says that if Apple can find a way to ditch the keys, they will.
Posted by Magic Rabbits in Aberdeen, Scotland on September 30, 2005 at 3:46 AM (PDT)
7
I would say ‘iPod phone’ must have a click wheel
The Nokia 3650, out for a few years now, has a click pad and a circular number pad arrangement.
Posted by Demosthenes on September 30, 2005 at 5:18 AM (PDT)
8
I kind of missed the obvious - they just need to simulate an old rotary dial using the click wheel. At the 3 o’clock position would be a very slight raised bump next to the wheel, and numbers 1-9 and 0 would be shown moving anti-clockwise from the bump. You just put your finger on the number you want, scroll until your finger touches the bump, then let go. Voila. No keypad. Just a single click-wheel. And, in fact, exactly the kind of iconic product differentiation that Apple are looking for.
Posted by Magic Rabbits in Aberdeen, Scotland on September 30, 2005 at 5:49 AM (PDT)
9
“while work on an LCD version of the Shuffle is drawing to a close”
i hope they dont introduce this cos i dont need to buy another ipod, already got 5…...and if i see it, i will buy it
Posted by khyberny on September 30, 2005 at 8:22 AM (PDT)
10
i think the iPod shuffle with a screen is the nano.
it would be interesting to see apple make a phone, using their video conferencing skills (iChat) on the phone. Hope they make it very rugged though, phones tend to be treated like keys in their handling.
Posted by scorpionsting on September 30, 2005 at 12:44 PM (PDT)
11
How about this for an ipod-phone…take a regular sized ipod and make it a little thinner and a little taller…now, cut it in half just below the screen. allow for the bottom portion to spin 180 degrees. one side has the clickwheel, the other side a full keyboard…ipod on one side…cell phone/pda on the other. when the clickwheel is facing the screen, the keyboard is locked and vice versa.
Posted by Brian Guettler on October 6, 2005 at 2:24 PM (PDT)