“Next year, cell phones will learn how to carry a tune. Picture phones with pretty screens certainly caught the fancy of the mobile phone shopper in 2004, sending handset sales surging a projected record 20% over a year ago. But cell-phone makers have a couple of new tricks in store next year to keep the beat going,” Scott Moritz writes for TheStreet.com.
“By far the biggest feature coming to handsets in 2005 will be music. Yes, the long-awaited union of cell phones and digital music players, like Apple’s iPod, will soon be upon us. Like heat added to hotness, the fast-growing popularity of portable MP3 players figures to be a major component of the already-strong mobile phone market,” Moritz writes. “The greatest anticipation is centered on Motorola’s joint development with Apple. Motorola signed an agreement in July to use Apple’s iTunes software in a line of digital music phones that is expected to be unveiled sometime next year. Speculation has also cranked up on the possibility that Apple will lend some of its design skills to fashion an iPod phone with Motorola… And with Apple’s iTunes software, there’s great hope that some of the much-praised music organization features will be worked into new phones.,” Moritz writes.
Full article here.
Sod all the phones. How about a G5 Powerbook?
1st post.
I agree, it’s WELL overdue.
You will not be seeing a G5 PowerBook any time soon, at least not with the current chip- maybe on the next round of 970 development. Look for the new Powerbook to have the FreeScale 32 bit PPC chip with a 500 or 600 mHz bus- it will run very well for now. Way too much heat.
Where Apple shines is making stuff right- otherwise merging existing technologies with their own brand of magic into something greater than the sum of their parts. The G3 smart phone meeting the PDA with iTunes support and a good sync with OS X would be a killer product and more of a “halo effect” platform than iTunes/iPod.
Time to review your cell contracts boys and girls- AppleMobile will be here before the WWDC.
Think Different
“FreeScale 32 bit PPC chip with a 500 or 600 mHz bus”
ROTF-LMAO
Id like to see them break 150 first
Phones with music are fine and dandy, but what about battery life? I much rather have a stripped down phone with long battery life than some phone that will only last 10 minutes…
Now, to have bluetooth enambled communications between phone and iPod would at least be interesting (when you want a friend to listen to that killer tune you just recorded in the studio)!
al IMHO
hey man.. er.. i think i have about 10 months left on my contract… so i might get one of these Motorolla USB2 phones if they’re any good (eh you don’t think they’d be firewire do you??)
Ohhh PRODIGIOUS
Does that mean Apple is like a little boy that gets good grades and gets a pat on the head (hey no michael jackson jokes) (okay.. too late)
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?nodeId=018rH3bTdG7249
When Steve Jobs shows up at MWSF with the NextGen PowerBook running a DualCore FreeScale PPC chip you’ll be the first in line. Forget the G5- this is a much better mobile chip.