“Motorola is set to go after the market that Apple has broken open with its iPod handheld digital music player. Motorola Chief Brand Officer Geoffrey Frost on Monday demonstrated the E398–a compact cell phone outfitted with stereo speakers, a digital camera and removable memory–at M.I.T.’s Designing Bits & Pieces Conference in Cambridge, Mass. The conference, sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association, focuses on work being done at M.I.T.’s Consumer Electronics Lab,” Steven Burke reports for CRN.
“The E398 is slated to begin shipping this summer, according to Frost. T-Mobile plans to market the E398 in Europe this fall, and Motorola is still talking to carriers about offering the product in the United States, he said. Pricing hasn’t been finalized,” Burke reports. “‘It’s sort of a mini iPod that makes phone calls,’ said Frost, who was wearing the E398 around his neck during his presentation and demonstrated the unit’s stereo capability. ‘It’s pretty cool,’ he added.”
Burke reports, “Frost positioned the E398 as a complement to the iPod. ‘I love my iPod,’ he said. ‘It has everything I own on it musically, and I do take it with me sometimes. I always have this [E398] with me.’ Motorola plans to release another cell-phone/iPod device at the end of this year that also plays video, in addition to the E398’s other features, Frost said.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Rumors say that Apple’s iPod mini form factor may be able to be snapped into a cell phone device in the future. It would be nice to combine two devices hanging from our belts (iPod and cell phone) into one, wouldn’t it?
Eventually the mobile phone manufacturers will take away the iPod’s market. That is inevitable. I’m sure Apple know this, and will be ready at that point to license FairPlay to them. In the meantime, there is way too much money to be made with the iPod itself.
Yeah, but if it’s Motorola, it’ll come out way too late, and be underpowered…
next item from Apple the iPhone?? bluetooth enabled, microhard disk, and what else can they shove in their. The next major got to have item?
Oh I get it now. iMac, iPod, iTunes, iTem. Gotta get me one of those toys???
Does anyone do any research before ringing the alarm bell?
I’ve done some digging on the specs of the E398 and – to be honest – it’s only an iPod killer if you want to carry a whole bucket of expansion modules.
Apparently, this phone – for that’s what it is – uses (yet another) new removable media format called TransFlash (http://www.sandisk.com for more info) which maxes out at 128MB for the time being.
62 songs at 128K is not quite the same as 1000 songs, unless you used to work for Enron’s accounts department.
People only want to carry around one device, but the technology is not even close to good enough now for adequate storage capacity–maybe in 4-5 years, maybe longer.
Isn’t it about time that we get tired of this iPod killer thing? Shoot, you’d think they’d still be calling lawn mowers grass killers, they’re so obsessed with this good vs. evil paradigm.
GET OVER IT!
Nobody is going to kill the iPod, but me! And I’m not anywhere near even thinking about that.
It would be cool to use the dial as a dialer (ala 70’s ATT phones). You could play the old sound as you’re dialing too! Would appeal to audiophiles and wierd people like me who remember (with nostalgia) rotary phones.
MCCFR, your Enron comment was hilarious.
Instead of calling all these new fangled devices iPod killers, why not just call it variety? If killing the iPod is the only reason you are creating a product, then you need to re-evaluate your business model.
Multi-use devices has always failed this is no exception.
dumb idea..
convergence never works
A computer is a multi-use device
A cell phone is a multi-use device:
phone, camera, organizer, email, text-messaging, and now
MUSIC
… enuff said!
LOVE the idea of snapping my iPod into my cell-phone. I hope that’s true. I always have my cell phone with me – and I always have my iPod – but I like small purses. Big problem! And – why not add iChat somehow into the mix?
Did they forget Samsung’s mp3 phone from four years ago?
Two things about cell phones are that they are very often given away for nothing if one signs up for a plan, and, because they are perceived as cheap, are not well taken care of and frequently replaced, nearly always with a later model. I don’t see the ipod in the same class as these phones. The ipod has created a panache factor, and if durability and the battery issue don’t loom their heads, I think it will be the ipod first, and a raft of wannabe competitors, some forgotten quickly, second, for quite a while.
This of course coming from someone who hasn’t yet seen an ipod and is surviving, strangely enough, without. My 2000+ song collection is well backed up, and so far the number of virii I have caught from Kazaa equal my total cost of collection………zeeeeroh.
Joe don’t answer the knock on your door at 3:00am its the RIAA coming to get you. You will end up in Guantamano Bay for re-education with all the other zealots.
I disagree that people only want to carry one device. Eventually you get to a point where it’s too much work to do individual things. When a device can do all kinds of things, it pretty much never does them all well. Just good enough.
Camera phones are cool, but won’t replace cameras. The Nokia N-Gage is a neat idea, but just has too much going on… etc.
People want simplicity, but that doesn’t always mean everything getting done through one medium.
thanks for proving my point multi use girl..
(duh chimed in by mentioning the computer does many different things..pfft hardly! just because software is so diverse does not mean the computer does many different things, in the sense of convergence)
here we go..
——-
A cell phone is a multi-use device:
phone, camera, organizer, email, text-messaging, and now
MUSIC
——-
good phone.. crappy camera w compromise, crappy organizer, painful email, painful text messaging, … and now music, huh?
I dont know what kind of battery life you get out of your phone, or what exactly you have in mind.. but this idea sucks on a few different levels… including what the hell to do w your phone when you’re playing music..
either a)hold it up to your ear (retarded) or b)leave it in your pocket/on the table (retarded) c)leave it in your pocket w earbuds (well done, except there’s little storage on a phone, so you really can’t listen to many songs, and of course the sound quality is crap and the battery life is crap)
convergence (of DIFFERENT products) is always about compromise, which is why it never works
I’m with JJ.
“The E398 is slated to begin shipping this summer, according to Frost.”
Given that this is Slo-Motorola, and the fact that they couldn’t get a G3 chip out on time, or a G4 chip out on time, or, more closely related, couldn’t get their newest, bestest pre-Xmas 2003 phone out until something like last week, Apple will have the 6th generation iPod micro-mini out by then.
It’s rather peculiar watching how people’s digital lifestyles are conforming to battery life.
I don’t think I ever want my phone to be able to play my music collection, or my iPod to make phone calls.
Remember the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups commercials?
Hey! You got YOUR music in my phone!
Hey! You got your phone in MY music!
There’s still quite a few years (I’d say at least 3-5) before we get the “convergence” others talk about above that will be adequate, or even okay for both needs, and not require a huge battery or constant recharging…maybe just in time for M$ Longhorn?
Even if Sony Ericsson could make a T630 like phone with a 4gig hard disk to store your songs in, it still needs an iPod like interface, which would be hard to manage using a phone keypad…. sure their phones are great, but still not as elegant as the ipod….
if ever a device like thise would be successful, it would most likely come from Apple than motorola or nokia….
if these companies want to succeed in making an ipod killer by sticking an mp3 player in a phone, maybe they should ask apple for help
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even with PDA like phones….. some are really good, like the P900 or the communicator, but Apple would probably do a better job at designing their UI and OS than these companies have in the past…..
cell phone companies taking away digital music players’ market? have camera phones taken away the market of digital cameras? have the cell phones with organizing software taken away the PDA market? has the NGAGE taken the gameboy market?
dave H is on crack (first post). sure it may be distantly possible that phone could take over the mp3 player market, but it’s surely not inevitable