Slashdot Log In
Motorola Announces E1060 Phone With iTunes Support
Posted by
timothy
on Mon Feb 14, 2005 06:19 PM
from the for-the-battle-will-be-hotter dept.
from the for-the-battle-will-be-hotter dept.
amichalo writes "Topping today's earlier news that Nokia and MS are collaborating on digital music in a cell phone, Motorola announced the E1060, a cell phone available Q4 2005 that supports MPEG-4/WMV/WMA/MP3 formats. Interestingly, Motorola is not locking themselves into Apple's iTunes, but also support Real Player. Reuters has more."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Wow... (Score:5, Interesting)
Some initial questions:
- Is there any word on what the iTunes interface looks like?
- Do we know what kind of removable memory it has? (What is TransFlash??)
- Will it DRM the music files so you can't transfer them back over bluetooth (is it a one-way sync?)
- Is the Bluetooth 2.0?
Re:Wow... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Informative)
TransFlash is a removable flash memory format designed by SanDisk specifically for Motorola at their request. It's used in about 3-5 Motorola phones now, I think, and absolutely nowhere else. It's thin enough and small enough that you could lose it and not even realize it's gone for weeks until you need it. It's about the size as my pinky fingernail, and almost as thin. It has absolutely no redeeming qualities aside from being so insanely small that Motorola can stick a slot into their phones and say they support removable media without actually allocating serious space for it. It's FAR less useful than SD or CF, the only worthwhile removable flash media format (IMHO).
Now, in their defense, Motorola assumes that most people will put one card in their phone and leave it forever, except maybe once or twice when they replace it with a bigger one and then leave that one in forever, like a hard drive. That's probably a valid assumption, but still having a proprietary format has all the associated problems with being proprietary (no competition so high prices, can't swap between devices, etc. etc. etc.)
Parent
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Wow... (Score:3, Informative)
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why can't I have a phone that just works as a phone... and an Mp3 player that just plays music, nothing else? I thought apple was going in the right direction with the shuffle... it's small, and does just one thing... play music... is that too much to ask of phones?
Re: Keeping the quarterly numbers up (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: Keeping the quarterly numbers up (Score:3, Interesting)
Wait... you said a decent phone... I can't make a decent phone... if multi-bi
Re: Keeping the quarterly numbers up (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Keeping the quarterly numbers up (Score:5, Insightful)
I want a big one.
Nobody makes a phone big enough for me anymore. i want a phone that extends from my ear to my mouth, and can rest comfortably on my shoulder. I'm not interested in putting it in my pocket, I'll clip it to my belt, thanks. But I'm sick of small telephones.
Oh, and one more little feature that I want - GOOD VOICE QUALITY. I can almost live without big for that one.
Parent
Re: Keeping the quarterly numbers up (Score:3, Interesting)
Good voice quality? Good luck. Maybe if we get WiFi phones and places to use them...
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up!! -- this might be "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." but the main thing we nerds want is STUFF THAT WORKS.
The best example of the converged device that STILL isn't worth a damn is the all-in-one printer which faxes, scans, copies, and prints... not a one of those does it do well. Oh, and by the way, with phones you have the added problem of low price, battery life, portability, and god forbid, if I lose the damn thing I don't want the be SOL because all the stuff I use (mp3 players, PDA, phone, etc.) is missing.
As usual, the manufacturers have created a solution without a problem. I have yet to hear somone at the gym say "Boy, I'd sure like my music player ring and have all my calendar/contact information as well". These things are a solution looking for a problem
Parent
You aren't looking at the problem right (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, I'm going to spend the money on the phone, and I like having a portable entertainment and workstation on my hip at all times, which is what it is. I can take care of simple work tasks just from that phone, and i can entertain myself very easily while waiting or traveling. The Mp3 player doesn't store that many songs and i need a memory card, but hell I don't carry with me that many Mp3s! I'm never going to fill up a 10,000 song player... or even a 1,000 song one.
Just because you don't want one doesn't mean other people don't. So far the only thing I don't like about those phones are the cameras. Everything else does in fact work great.
Parent
Re:You aren't looking at the problem right (Score:3, Informative)
There's another advantage of converged devices: you can get functions that are a "mix" of the two, which often turn out to be useful in their own right.
The Treo is a smartphone: a mobile phone and a PDA. But it's called "Treo" because it has three functions: mobile phone, PDA, and mobile Internet. The third function is a mix of the first two.
It
Re:You aren't looking at the problem right (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why I'm waiting for Apple to develop a cell phone. It'll be sleek, elegant, easy to use and cost only half my salary.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
And this would be the point of the discussion, from my POV.
Where is the phone that can stand on it's own and say
"I am a kickass phone, I get better reception that the cheap alternatives to the model containing a spare kitchen sink, my batteries last 3 months on standby or 48 hours of talk. I was designed to be a better phone, not a better way to carry eight devices in your pocket ! "
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think a media player / camera / phone isn't a bad idea... if it were done properly. And no one has really done it properly... yet.
Parent
Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Both divergence and convergence make sense (Score:5, Informative)
Divergence makes sense because some people just want a phone that does the phone function well. I don't really care for carrying around a shitty camera. I don't use a PDA. I don't like music. I therefore bought me a Nokia 1100 phone. Dumb as a rock phone with BW screen no bluetooth etc. Small, cheap and lasts for a month on a single charge (my mileage). When I do carry a digital camera, I want pretty good photos and carry a real digital camera.
If you look at hunting knives, you'll see a wide spectrum of just-a-blade knives to Swiss Army (does everything, but not very well). I expect that phone vendors will continue to mnake just-a-phone, but the incremental addition of a MP3 player etc is getting cheaper and adds a bunch of functionality (as well as a way to sell services), so the richer feature set will continue to grow too.
Parent
Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
My main gripe is that these features that are added to these devices are done half-assed, so to speak. Sure, the Palm series of handhelds (and the various pocketPCs) do the PDA thing damn-good, but when you wanna watch video/listen to music, they don't really have the storage for them... and when you wanna play games, they don't really have the hand-control.
That's why I bought an iPod, so I have the storage for my music.
That
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought this was Slashdot, a gatehring of people excited about new technology. Why do we mod up people who want to live in the past?
Parent
cool... (Score:2, Funny)
No RAZR iTunes? (Score:2)
iTunes? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:iTunes? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:iTunes? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, I'm not exactly clear how it supports iTMS PlayFair DRM either. The linked article mentions only MPEG4, not iTunes, so it is quite a leap to assume that this phone is the iTunes mobile phone that Apple and Motorola have been talk
Keyboard? (Score:4, Insightful)
Another... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Another... (Score:5, Insightful)
/.'s ability to predict the next hot consumer toy is nothing I'd bet the farm on... ;-)
Parent
'bout time (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:'bout time (Score:4, Informative)
" Man this took them forever. Call me a simple developer, however how hard can it be to add some more flash memory, better sound output through a headset, and modify the hardware to read MP3s. I've been pissed at the phone industry for nearly 2 years for not doing this."
It's not the first phone with those features, by far. My somewhat old Sony Ericsson K700i [sonyericsson.com] has ~ 40MB of memory and plays MP3s with good quality. I don't use it as an MP3 player in the traditional sense, but I use MP3 files as ringtones, much to the chagrin of the people around me. The FM radio has been surprisingly useful as well.
It's not easy to find in the US, but it's available online. I got an unlocked model on my last trip to Asia. A trip to Asia is a great way to remind one's self of how utterly backward the US mobile phone market is.
Parent
or, alternatively... (Score:4, Interesting)
Or, alternatively, "Interestingly, Nokia has locked themselves into Microsoft's Windows Media Player and Motorola has not done so"
...or how about, "Interestingly, the device will support a wide number of formats"?
Really getting tired of slanted stories.
It's pretty big news that the Motorola device supports stuff other than WMP formats. Why? Because generally MS contracts for that sort of thing go as follows: "License WMP, get the technology really, really cheap, get lots of support from us, we'll practically write it all for you. Now, dump everything else, or the deal's off." Motorola told 'em to go screw.
Re:or, alternatively... (Score:5, Informative)
The only value in this press release is the word "iTunes." Everything else has already been done by the competiton.
Parent
$oblig_comment-[25}{subject} (Score:5, Funny)
Killer App for Music Phones (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Make sure you can sync with your computer (e.g., iTunes)
2) Keep the airtime charge for download low (music biz to subsidize?)
3) Work with the radio stations so that when they play a new release they can also say, "And dial *1592 with your iTunes phone to buy and download this song now"
Instant gratification + low end user cost = profit
Hint: (Score:4, Interesting)
The thing to remember about "convergence" devices is they only make sense if you can perform both functions without either interfering with the other. Let's say someone sells something that is both a video game system and a DVD player [azursoft.fr]. This is a good idea. There is no interference, and the parts compliment the whole nicely; a DVD player needs some kind of MPEG decoder, a video game system needs some kind of optical drive, but the two never interfere-- you will never want to use your DVD player and video game system at the same time. Now let's say someone sells something that is both a video game system and a PVR [techstuff.ca]. It will not sell. True, a hard drive and certain other features are desirable in both video games and PVRs. There is massive interference, though; you very much want to use both of these products at the same time. You want to be able to sit there and play GTA all night without worrying that you're missing Family Guy, because the Tivo will just pick it up. The engineer must thus either duplicate so much hardware that there is little or no benefit to the convergence, or just dictate "you can't use the pvr and video game features at once". (Your PC, of course, can act as both a PVR and a video game system without significant interference! But there you're trading functionality for convenience, ease of use, focus and cost. Someone could try to slap together a PC that plugs into a TV and say "look! it's a pvr and video game system!"... but they'll probably be as hard to use and charge as much as if you'd just bought a small PC.)
Now, let's think: What if someone tries to put an mp3 player in a phone? Even worse idea. The parts compliment each other poorly; you do not want or need the kind of playback quality on a phone that you need in an mp3 player, you do not want or need the kind of disk storage in a phone that you need in an mp3 player (unless you have the ability to record and save phone calls or ambient noise, which is a kickass potential feature, but unlikely due to legality). Meanwhile, there's interference. You want to be able to pause your mp3 player to answer your phone without losing your place; you want to be able to run your mp3 player all night without your phone battery being dead in the morning. The two features subtly, but distinctly, struggle for the hardware. Maybe if Apple is building the thing they can reconcile the two. If Motrorola designs it... probably not so much.
Basically the only benefit here is that unlike with PVRs or video game systems, people have shown themselves ready and willing in large quantities to pay too much for mp3 players and phones. OK... wait, actually that's a pretty good benefit, since people have demonstrated they're willing to pay more for a "luxury" product with the iPod name, and if this is a high-margin product it will make decent profit even if very few people buy one. Um, I might have just seriously damaged my own argument. But, you get the idea.
Someday a PDA, a video game system, a phone, and an mp3 player may all converge in a single cost-effective, battery-efficient device. Until that day it is unlikely consumers will bite on a product that is more than one, but not all of these.
(Note: If you object to anything above, pretend I prepended it with "In my opinion...)
Re:Hint: (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh no, wait, it sells like hot cakes.
And, of course, you can record phone calls and ambient noise (that's called "dictaphone") with it. And I, for one, find it a lot more easy to deal with the management of only one battery.
I don't get your point with regards to pausing the mp3 during a phonecall - I guess that's a feature that shows why convergence is good: if I receive (or make) a call, the mp3 is automatically paused and resumed after the call.
Parent
Re:mp3/m4a/m4p/wma ringtones and hold music (Score:5, Funny)
I believe the benefits conferred by this feature will be more than cancelled out by the resulting conspicuously high murder rate among users of the feature.
Parent
Network Ipod? (Score:3, Interesting)
It would look exactely the same as the current Ipod. I think you could browse the store fairly efficiently if they indexed the songs by artist and song title - I bet you could keep it to four clicks maximum without too much scrolling to get to a song from the main index.
Any thoughts?
Oh no! (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously though, I'm not the only one who WANTS to see the day where we have a phone, iPod, and PDA all in one device... right? Sure, bring on the "jack-of-all-trades master-of-none" arguement... but carrying around one device that does it all is better than having multiple gadgets. So what if the current creations need a little more R&D... it's not like basic phones can't be purchased anymore.
Wasp T12 (Score:3, Funny)
It's been out for three weeks in Japan - where's yours?
Nathan.
Re:Wasp T12 (Score:3, Interesting)
* Dynamic idle for personalized portal connections
* Full spectrum audio dominance
* share the scoop with rapid ease
* hoot your trap off
* 1024 character TXT with full fluid lexicon
* Double duty - info focused
tricky...
Ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
If it is currently expected in Q4 2005, that means 50% it will be cancelled before it comes out, and 50% chance it will ship 6 months late. EVen if it does ship on time, announcing it today doesn't make much sense (it guess it makes pr sense, but not practical sense).
Before You Say 'Another Useless Gadget'... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am the target audience. (Score:5, Interesting)
And this phone will almost definitely become my next pick: my 1G iPod just died (not of battery issues -- I replaced that with a Newer Tech high capacity unit a while ago), my phone contract only has a few months left on it, and this advice would therefore let me slim down my pockets by cutting a theoretical iPod Shuffle out of the loop.
With so many phones on the market -- just browse through the US, GSM Nokia lineup sometime if you want to make your head spin -- there needs to be differentiation. All phones are reasonably small, and smaller yet is not worth $400 to me. All phones that I'd consider use Bluetooth and furthermore have adequate to excellent RF reception for all the neo-Luddites out there clamoring for "just a phone. sheesh". iTunes syncing is just the ticket for those like me on the fence.
iPod killer? Unlikely. (Score:5, Interesting)
That being said, I'm not sure I see downloadable music on your cellphone EVER taking off because once you've got tons of storage (and tons of your music) why would you spend the time (or money) downloading more through your phone. Where I think a device like this could become popular is if service providers offered streaming radio. This seems much more possible now with 3g networks taking off.
Parent
Re:iPod Killer (Score:3, Insightful)
This phone is useful to me because I usually have a cell phone, while my iPod is mainly for my drive into work and while at work. To have a 5 hours worth of music with me at all times would really make the time I spend waiting in line, at appointments, etc, move faster. You can't always carry an iPod, even a Shuffle, but you can usually have your phone with you.
Forbes & Chicago Tribune on Zander & Motor (Score:3, Informative)
Making Over Motorola: If mobile communication is going to be seamless, Motorola has to be seamless. Forbes Yahoo Business: link [yahoo.com]
New chief reconnecting Motorola: Memories of earnings disappointments and last holiday season's product debacle are blurring as investors focus on rising sales and profits. link [chicagotribune.com]
Re:I don't get it (Score:3, Informative)
AAC is part of the MPEG-4 standard, which this phone supports...