“Apple Computer may be getting into the mobile phone market after all,” Troy Wolverton writes for TheStreet.com. “The company last week filed a series of applications to trademark the phrase ‘Mobile Me’ to cover, among other uses, the sending and receiving of ‘data, images, audio, video and documents … over local or global communications networks.’ The filing suggests that the company is getting ready to dip into the mobile-phone business, said American Technology Research analysts Shaw Wu and Albert Lin in a note issued Thursday. ‘We believe this is further indication of AAPL’s strategic direction to extend its iPod + iTunes and Mac franchises into new business areas including smart phones, value-added mobile content services, and the broader consumer electronics space,’ according to the analysts. An Apple representative did not return a call seeking comment.”

Wolverton writes, “Many analysts have argued that Apple would eventually come out with a successor device, potentially one of its own making. That expectation has been fueled by the fact that the company owns the iPhone.org Internet address… Indeed, a number of analysts and Apple watchers expected the company to announce its own mobile phone at the MacWorld conference this week. Instead, the only new hardware-related announcements the company made at the conference was that it is putting Intel chips inside of two of its computer product lines.”

“In their note, Wu and Lin acknowledge that Apple’s ambitions, indicated by the trademark applications, go beyond — and may not necessarily include — the mobile phone market,” Wolverton writes. ‘We believe ‘Mobile Me’ could also be related to location profiles that could be stored in dongle-type keychain devices or perhaps a future iPod or cell phone that would carry user profiles, including bookmarks, cookies and preferences that would allow people to carry their personalized computing experience wherever they go. We believe this information could be transferred through USB and/or Bluetooth to the host client,’ they said.”

Full article here.

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Related article:
Apple applies for ‘Mobile Me’ trademark – January 11, 2006