[whatleydude]

Ladies and Gents!

The new iPod phone from Apple & Motorola
The 'Rokr'

The long-awaited Motorola phone, which plays iTunes, was unveiled by Apple chief executive Steve Jobs at a conference in San Francisco last night.

The new Motorola Rokr phone can hold up to 100 songs, audio books or Podcasts.
It can take photos or videos, access the Internet and comes with stereo speakers.

Music can be instantly accessed via a single button and songs will pause if the listener answers a call.

The phone can be "auto-filled" with iTunes already on a user's Mac or PC.

Mr Jobs said the new device was like having an iPod Shuffle on a mobile phone.

However, some doubt whether the phone will sell as well as the iPod in the fiercely competitive mobile market.

Anthony Ball, director of independent mobile phone comparison service OneCompare.com, said: "I'm not convinced that consumers will be ready to fork out £200 for a mobile phone handset as there are phones out there offering similar capabilities at a much lower cost through competitive tariffs.

"Apple will need to team up with a competitive network provider to add value to the product."

Details of which mobile phone networks will be compatible with the Motorola Rokr in the UK were not yet available, an Apple spokeswoman said.


Source: www.thisislondon.co.uk

What do you think?
Personally - I'm not impressed..

PLUS - it doesn't mention if the phone is 3G compatible or not.... :confused:
But I thought I'd post it here anyway..

[3GScottishUser]

The Inquirer (08/09/20005):

THEY'VE TAKEN so long to launch the Rockr – Motorola's handset with Apple's iTunes compatibility – that it already looks outdated. Curiously Motorola has even given Cingular Wireless one year's exclusivity for the Rockr.

In 12 months time, who else is going to want to sell it, anyway? The craziest thing is that the handset can only support 100 songs on its 512 MB microSD/TransFlash cards. Wasn't the iPod a smash hit precisely because you could download your entire record collection to it?

Other crazy things include its Bluetooth support. Can you manage your iTunes collection via Bluetooth – No? Does it support a Bluetooth wireless stereo headset (as opposed to mono) – No. Instead it has built-in stereo speakers and comes with a wired stereo headset.

It doesn't even appear to support USB 2.0 as far as the INQ can make out. Which would appear to be why Motorola is saying it takes around 30 seconds to download a 4 MB track.

For this, Cingular expects our American cousins to 'churn' to their network; sign a two year contract; and pay $250. Given that Apple has just announced a new range of iPods, it's hardly a tempting offer.

Over here in Blighty the Carphone Warehouse currently has an exclusive deal. You have to join O2 and get it free with the right contract or pay £210 to own it on prepay. After that it will be available from Orange, Virgin Mobile (shame they didn't get to launch it) and BT Mobile.

The bit the INQ really doesn't understand is that the Rockr E1 doesn't appear to support downloading iTunes via the mobile Internet. That doesn't seem to make sense. But then the E1 is a GSM handset not a 3G beastie. Perhaps there's a 3G version in the pipeline for Europe/Asia?

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=26019

[bsrjl1]

Link to pre-order it from CPWH: http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/e1

Phone was first announced 12 months ago, can't believe it's taken this long. Hopefully they will put the iTunes software on other handsets - would like to see it on the v3x, but I don't think it will happen

[3GScottishUser]

I suspect both Nokia and Sonyericsson will make the going pretty tough for the iTunes phone.

Too little, too late, to be tempting?

[whatleydude]

The N91 (I think) can pretty much play anything and the memory is so much better than the 'Rokr'.

..plus (another 'I think') I read somewhere that Apple were looking at developing an iTunes Symbian program..maybe?
Can't remember..

So yeah - as you say - the phone looks dated already.

[bsrjl1]

The N91 has been developed so music plug-ins can be added for eg: Napster, HMV or iTunes. It would be great if Apple did this.