Major Hangups Over the iPod Phone

chadwick writes "It seemed like a sure thing: the iPod mobile phone. What could be more irresistible than a device combining the digital-music prowess of Apple Computer (AAPL) with the wireless expertise of Motorola (MOT)? Motorola sent its buzz machinery into overdrive in January when it leaked word that the product would debut at a cellular-industry conference in New Orleans in mid-March. Well, hold the phone. At the New Orleans confab, a frustrated Edward Zander, Motorola's chief executive, stood before a roomful of analysts and reporters and said the handset's debut would have to wait. "

Say WHY

[mr100percent]

Why can't the poster include a one-sentence explanation of Why? He even copied the headline. From the article:

Verizon, Cingular, and other wireless operators want customers to pay to put music on phones [instead of copying them from a computer.] They think getting a full song should be like getting a ring tone.

This isn't a first. Verizon modified the firmware on the Treo 600 and Motorola v710 camera phones to prevent the images from being copied off via Bluetooth. Instead, they wanted you to send the photos through their pay service.

This is why US is waaay behind in cellular tech..

[dwipal]

I visit India and other contries, and i must say that the phones and technologies people use there is WAAAY superior than what we use in US.

Synchronizing the phones with computer is standard there, and so is "SMSing" ringtones. If one person buys a ringtone from the carrier (which is around 8 cents), that ringtone can be SMSed to all the friends. There is a nominal charge for SMS also, basically its a huge market which people simply love.

What sucks here is iTunes sells whole song for 99c, and the f**** cell phone carrier sells the MIDI file for that song for 3 dollars, that expires in 3 months!!!! No wonder people use sites like 3guploads.com or PitPim to put ringtones on their phones. The carriers are simply killing the technology by locking too much stuff.

Re:This is why US is waaay behind in cellular tech

[ezthrust]

You don't have to go to India to get a fair deal. I am on Fido in Canada using a SE T610 I got for $25. It has the most recent firmware, BT is active, I can use .midi files that I make myself as ringtones. Text messages 10 cents, Picture 25 cents. Data, 3 cents a KB (I don't have a plan for that)

Am I happy with my carrier?
Damn straight!

Re:Well then.

[tim1724]

Isn't Motorola supposed to be German anyway?

Huh? What are you talking about?

Motorola is a US corporation, traded on the NYSE (ticker symbol MOT). Its headquarters are in Schaumburg, Illinois. How does that make it German?

Re:Pre announcements

[mp3phish]

" I thought the wireless companies make enough profit by passing on their fees and surcharges directly to the customer"

Actually, cellular companies make a hefty profit by reselling the phones. They only "lose" money on the free phones. All the "discounted" phones are still above their costs. They just jack them up significantly and then drop them back down to a reasonable level when you buy the 2yr contract.

Re:Same issues as usual, actually

[wannabgeek]

In India, the handset and the carrier are pretty much detached. Lot of people by the handset they like separately and then simply buy the SIM card from the service provider. Allows them to change carrier/number etc pretty easily as there is no network locking or anything. Of course, we don't get the handset for free, tho.

Re:Pre announcements

[tomdoe]

Last I checked, apple pays 60c per song and resells them for 99c.

Actually, I believe the poster is just stating a bit of widely-reported information:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/11/07/your_99c_b elong/

At an Apple financial analyst conference on Wednesday CEO Steve Jobs admitted that Apple makes no revenue from the online download service, the iTunes Music Store, that he launched in April.

Re:Pre announcements

[BasilBrush]

My word, you do come out wilth a lot of bullshit. All phones that come with a contract are subsidised, not just the free ones. The operators do not make any profit on any of them, quite the contrary. If you didn't know this already, again you'd heve learned it by reading TFA.

this is good.

[recharged95]

It's actually good this will never come about when Sony, Nokia, and DoMoCo are releasing phones with better than ipod shuffle capabilities (2GB) come this fall.

And with Bluetooth or WiFi, just sync your tunes from your desktop. There only needs to be one repository for your music, not many--and having iTunes on a phone seems a bit self defeating in that scenario. As for downloading, I rather download at home--when I'm not on the go. When I'm 'mobile' I rather be listening to my tunes than buying, surfing for tunes, etc... And a watered down iTunes is just another QT player. Though only having 48MB, I like the player capability on my Sony Ericsson for my MP3s, the i/f is simple, bluetooth syncing is simple and it just does the job--and I still have 1 week battery life! Explains why Sony's shifting away from the PDA and ipod biz (those sales was a factor too).

Re:So?

[Admiral Llama]

I had one of those. The documentation that came with the USB drivers stated that you weren't supposed to do anything on the computer while it was transferring files. Even then, the thing would BSOD half the time anyway. Opening notepad while moving songs to the phone was a guaranteed blue screen.

And no, there was no updated version of the software that you could get.

"Wireless expertise" my @55.

[andreyw]

"Wireless expertise" my arse. I have a Motorola phone, unfortunately. I have an i60 (an iDEN phone), which is a formidable brick, which by now is about two years old. Naturally, had my service provider been anything OTHER than Nextel, I would be using something likely top-of-line, but this is Nextel... and I don't want to cough up dough simply to upgrade to another unstable and buggy Motorola contraption.

Some bugs with the actual software of the phone...

1. Inability to correctly switch cells. Holy shit, batman. It's a "CELL" phone, yet it can't even do *this* right. Everytime I board my Metra train home, I *have* to turn the phone off and back on in order to get a 100% signal, else its near 0%. Checking information gleaned from the diagnostidc mode reveals that the problem is caused by the phone's whatever lack of desire to switch to a nearer tower. Ridiculous.
2. Occasional lack of missed call and voice mail notification when coming back in range. SOmetimes these notification just simply never appear... sometimes they arrive a couple of hours *after* my phone is in range. Dumb.
3. Occasional missed rings. Is this really so terribly hard? Is there any reason why the phone occasionally fails to ring/vibrate?

Physical defects and horrible design.

1. The phone power adapter plug. This one gave out on me after 4 months. Taking the plug apart - the culprit was a cold solder joint. Go figure. Well, I resoldered it.
2. The phone must have been designed for midgets. I am 18 years old and hardly a giant. Unless you're mashing the phone hard against your cheek there is no way in hell your mouth will be on the level of the microphone. This is terribly annoying.

Nickel-and-diming by Motorola/Nextel: Want to use a cradle? Better get a different power supply, since the one that comes with the phone will be rejected. Service issues: Nextel has got to be the only vell provider with 100% reception in the middle of a freaking corn field (Illinois Math and Sci Academy, Aurora, IL) and 0% reception in the middle of a bustling metropolis. (Chicago, IL).

Re:Pre announcements

[mamahuhu]

The issue I have with this problem is that it is all so US centric.

Guess why the US lags in mobile phone use? - stupid monopolies doing stupid things and the customers having to take it as it's the only game in town - literally sometimes.

As an alternative consider Hong Kong where I live.

There are something like 6 mobile phone companies (plus virtual operators) all competing for the same 7 million people. Almost everyone buys their phones at retail with no lock-in on the carrier that they use. I have bought subsidised phones but they are always cheap and nasty - I gave them to my parents to take back to the homeland as there's no carrier lock-in.

The way all these carriers compete is on call cost and service. It is very cheap to make calls in Hong Kong, free SMS, voicemail, call forwarding. Free calls within the network for designated numbers (Girl Friend to BF for instance) - and most crucially - you pay to both make AND receive calls on your mobile phone.

You pay for the convenience of receiving calls when you're out and about. Or to make calls when you're out. But interestingly land lines do NOT pay a toll to call a mobile.

Best yet is that you can call divert your phone to a landline and no one pays to make the call to your mobile number... unless the calling party uses a mobile.

What this does is encourage people to make lots of calls on their mobile and use it for their main number as no one cares that it is a mobile number - no cost to call it. Hong Kong was first to allow number transfer between carriers resulting in a market that is hugely competitive.

So we have low call costs, lots of value added services, everyone using mobile phones for most of their calls, many people have more than one phone (work, family and mistress :) and we get fancy phones with lots of features.

It is a totally different economy for mobile phones in Hong Kong. But there is a way to change the game for the US.

So to the iPod phone... In this HK context the choice of phone comes down to what people want to buy - usually the latest and greatest fashion phone. An iPod phone would be hugely popular here. It would be another fashion phone, the coolest must have toy. And as most people get their phones from suppliers other than the carriers there is no subsidy and nothing stopping an iTunes phone for Hong Kong.

But think of it in reverse: If Apple released an iPod with phone functionality at a slight premium over a standard iPod - say like the iPod Photo is a premium iPod... then it would not need subsidy. It's an iPod not a phone.... no one buys subsidised iPods.

But what has been spoken about is a phone with limited iTunes support - so you enter the realm of carrier subsidy. Wrong way to look at it totally.

I'd buy an iPod 40GB with GSM phone like a shot. And I'd pay HKD$4000 to do so. That's around $500 USD.

I would NOT pay HKD$800 ($100 USD) for a shitty subsidised phone with iTunes that locks me into bad expensive service from one carrier.

So what does Apple want to do? Sell iPods or license iTunes to phone manufacturers? There's no option to my mind. Screw the US carriers and change the game!

Re:Pre announcements

[Keeper]

The way all these carriers compete is on call cost and service. It is very cheap to make calls in Hong Kong, free SMS, voicemail, call forwarding. Free calls within the network for designated numbers (Girl Friend to BF for instance) - and most crucially - you pay to both make AND receive calls on your mobile phone.

You pay for the convenience of receiving calls when you're out and about. Or to make calls when you're out. But interestingly land lines do NOT pay a toll to call a mobile.

Best yet is that you can call divert your phone to a landline and no one pays to make the call to your mobile number... unless the calling party uses a mobile.

What this does is encourage people to make lots of calls on their mobile and use it for their main number as no one cares that it is a mobile number - no cost to call it. Hong Kong was first to allow number transfer between carriers resulting in a market that is hugely competitive.

So we have low call costs, lots of value added services, everyone using mobile phones for most of their calls, many people have more than one phone (work, family and mistress :) and we get fancy phones with lots of features.


You haven't actually looked at cell phone plans in the US much lately have you?

The only difference with what you describe is that in the US is the contract bundle phones (if you go that route) aren't complete utter crap.

Re:Don't release it untill it's ready for sale.

[Kiryat Malachi]

Motorola doesn't have much experience with releasing consumer products that people lust for...

I don't know. They did pretty well with car radios, televisions, and then later on the cell phone (a Motorola invention), then the StarTAC, and now the Razr.

Apple does alright too, but Motorola has a pretty good track record with making stuff people want to buy.

Also, what kind of crack are you smoking?

This is precisely why Apple usually announces hardware and sells it the very same day.

Apple is infamous for announcing a product they know they won't be selling/shipping for months.