“Motorola Inc. was set to unveil on Thursday its first iTunes phone–a much-anticipated model capable of playing music bought from a popular Apple Computer Web site. But the Schaumburg cell phone manufacturer canceled at the last minute. And the reason speaks volumes about the balance of power between cell phone-makers and phone service providers, a balance increasingly tilted toward the latter, analysts say,” Mike Hughlett reports for The Chicago Tribune.
“Motorola had previewed the iTunes phone to the media earlier this week, with the intent of publicly announcing it Thursday. Then the company got a last-minute message from a wireless carrier or carriers, and indefinitely postponed the announcement–a highly unusual occurrence,” Hughlett reports. “Why would a wireless carrier have such sway with the world’s second-largest cell phone-maker? Because of the unique structure of the industry: Wireless carriers–particularly in the U.S.–buy phones and then often subsidize their cost to consumers.”
“The iTunes phone that was to debut Thursday has a display screen akin to the iPod. It is capable of holding up to 100 songs, depending on how much a buyer wants to pay for memory cards, a Motorola executive said earlier this week,” Hughlett reports. “At the top end of song storage, the first iTunes phone has about the same capacity as one variation of Apple’s new iPod Shuffle MP3 player. The first iTunes phone also has a stereo headset jack and is enabled with Bluetooth, a wireless technology.”
“The phone is supposed to hit the market this summer. But Motorola had planned to unveil it Thursday in conjunction with the start of CeBIT, a big technology and electronics tradeshow in Hanover, Germany. The company killed the unveiling after discussions late Tuesday night with ‘our operators,’ said Monica Rohleder, a Motorola spokeswoman. Motorola discussed ‘the logistics of this product with our carriers across the globe,’ she said. The result: ‘We decided to wait to announce it when everybody is in sync with it.’ The announcement will come when the phone gets closer to hitting the market, Rohleder said,” Hughlett reports.
Full article here.
[Update, 9:39am ET: added the following from Playlist, amended the take]
“Another iTunes-capable phone made by Motorola dubbed the ROKR may make its debut later this month at the Miami Music Multimedia conference in Miami, Fla. The event takes place March 23 – 26, 2005. Motorola director of entertainment Alberto Moriondo has said that his company plans to release several iTunes-capable phones,” Peter Cohen reports for Playlist. “This isn’t the first false start since Motorola and Apple first announced plans to work together in July, 2004. Motorola was first supposed to show off the phone at January’s Consumer Electronics Show, but cancelled plans to do so ostensibly to maintain a competitive advantage against other cell phone makers.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Unusual. Are service providers fighting each other over the iTunes phone? Or something else? The service carriers that have this phone will have a huge service differentiator from the other carriers that lack iTunes compatibility. iTunes could prove to be a very big deal for Motorola. One can only imagine what would happen if Apple made a line of cell phone units – or added the capability to iPod and/or iPod mini via the Dock Connector. Of course, it could also be that Motorola is having trouble getting carriers, since the phones get loaded via iTunes and the computer instead of over the carrier’s networks.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Motorola says it’s working on more iTunes phones, some models ‘can store eight hours of music’ – March 10, 2005
Motorola’s ‘ROKR’ Apple iTunes mobile phone to be unveiled this Thursday – March 06, 2005
Motorola’s yet-to-be-unveiled ‘ROKR’ phone will be first Apple iTunes phone – February 16, 2005
Motorola E1060 not, repeat not, the iTunes phone – February 16, 2005
Motorola executive previews iTunes Phone at CES, syncs to iTunes like an Apple iPod – January 06, 2005
Apple’ prodigious hardware and software design skills may help Motorola create iPod phone – December 28, 2004
Apple, Motorola iTunes on cell phones a harmonious deal that benefits both companies – August 05, 2004
Motorola posts Steve Jobs’ Apple iTunes announcement video – July 28, 2004
Apple, Motorola iTunes deal not exclusive, debuts Apple’s licensing of FairPlay DRM – July 27, 2004
Motorola and Apple to bring iTunes Music Player to Motorola’s next-gen mobile phones – July 26, 2004
My immediate feeling on reading this was that the carriers aren’t fighting over it — they’re trying to quash it…
That is the end (for a long time) of the iPod-type phone.
Big behind the scenes politics going on…(think Microsoft). The monopoly monster is starting to move again.
Now you know why Apple stock is dropping.
Watch a new phone come out that plays song —in a format that Bill Gates likes…
I second that
People usually pay at least $2.50 for a ringtone in the US, downloaded via the phone, which can get you extra charges if you don’t have an internet plan in your phone… so there’s a lot of revenue for carriers over music for cellphones.
So why would they want you to get your songs from iTunes and then put them in the phone via a cable or bluetooth? What’s in it for carriers?
I’m sure they are not fighting over who gets iTunes, they are trying to convince Moto not to release the phone…
Maybe cell carriers want to work with Apple to sell music via cellphone and thats why they put the announcement on hold…
Carriers want to squeeze every penny possible out of there customers selling them songs from iTunes is another opportunity at additional revenue for them.
I’m surprised Motorola got this far at all. The operators still thinks they can lock in content. And over charge.
When is the Apple phone coming?
I won’t buy a new cell phone until then.
I agree with above comment, I think the the providers want to have their own “iTunes” store. Just like ringtones, they want to directly sell the songs to the customer.
Let your thought be known on this new forum that I started
http://www.itunesphone.com/forum
hmm, I think I agree with the first poster
not good at all, and you KNOW microsoft is all up in this, as even now they are squashing any other kind of phone OS already
Tit’s pretty clear ..they want to quash it…because of they would lose alot of money in ringtone sales….who would pay 2 bucks for a crappy midi file ….when you can get the real deal for 99 cents…..theres is no doubt that this is the reason why this happened
I think it is to crush it as well. Verizon is not bluetooth friendly. It interferes with thier business model of charging you to xfer images & info over their network to your PC rather than allowing you to do it directly. (see http://www.pencomputing.com/wireless/motorolav710.html )
Dadgammit! You mean I have to wait to see when I can replace my T68i
Jimminy Cripes! Bill, you better not be up in this bitch!
all in all, not so surprising …
vodafone already has 500,000 songs available, why should they leave revenue to Apple?
Apple making it´s own phone? – I doubt it. – If they´d decide to sell directly to customers (get the phone contract with whomever you like), it´d be significantly more expensive (i.e. only Mac-Heads like us would buy). To get listed at the big carriers, Apple´d have to bend over – and Steve won´t do that (right so).
Hardware is easy to assemble – the key is the carriers…
If carriers want to crush Motorola’s iTunes phone, then why this?
MacDailyNews: Motorola says it’s working on more iTunes phones, some models ‘can store eight hours of music’ – Thursday, March 10, 2005
I agree that it’s the carriors that are trying to quash the iTunes phone.
Farking bastages..
They are way focused on there $2.00 per month ringtone ripoff and camera phone picture gouging party to go along with something as cool and user friendly as an iTunes phone.
Magic word “enough” is enough with these greedy cell phone carriors.
All it takes to kill the iTunes phone is for a couple of carriers to say no. It would be money well spent for Microsoft! The carriers have control…(bad news for Apple, unless they could put a network together with a different technology)
It is amazing how the conspiacy theorists come out of the woodwork the minute it seems that there is something unexpected.
I really think that most of the speculation here is a bit paranoid. I have a feeling that Motorola had to delay this to ensure enough phones to satisfy a pipeline fillfor ALL oof their carrier customers. No one wants to have a customer go to another carrier just because they can’t get the phone they want if the other guy has it.
In any case, iTunes service is completely different from ringtones, and won’t cannabalize it. I for one would never buy a ringtone (and have never sent a picture from my Motorola picture phone), but I may use the service for actual songs.
I don’t think the carriers want to leave the money on the table from people like me. They need all thhe revenue they can get.
Phone Guy: “If carriers want to crush Motorola’s iTunes phone, then why this? MacDailyNews: Motorola says it’s working on more iTunes phones, some models ‘can store eight hours of music’ – Thursday, March 10, 2005”
Because it was done and written before the whole itunes phone project got smacked down last night by the Man.
(MDN just regurgitates stuff by others, it does no reporting. go to google news, type in Apple (or related key words and you can see it all before it comes to MDN))
The iPod phone is dead. Somebody at Motorola and Apple are in the process of a)looking for a new job or b)realizing that they just committed career hari-kari.
Steve J. is realizing uh-oh I have just been shut out of a huge market.
Phone Guy: “If carriers want to crush Motorola’s iTunes phone, then why this? MacDailyNews: Motorola says it’s working on more iTunes phones, some models ‘can store eight hours of music’ – Thursday, March 10, 2005”
Because it was done and written before the whole itunes phone project got smacked down last night by the Man.
(MDN just regurgitates stuff by others, it does no reporting. go to google news, type in Apple (or related key words and you can see it all before it comes to MDN))
The iPod phone is dead. Somebody at Motorola and Apple are in the process of a)looking for a new job or b)realizing that they just committed career hari-kari.
Steve J. is realizing uh-oh I have just been shut out of a huge market.
What huge market? Given the throughput of serial communications by telephone does anyone seriously think music will be downloaded from cell phone carriers in the forseeable future? Let’s not be silly.
I’m not sure what is going on. Perhaps it’s supply constraints. This does explain the recent drop in AAPL price/share. I knew it couldn’t be the result of non-starters Napster and RealPlayer and their posturing as significant players in this industry.
You’re all being a little pessimistic. I think the original iTunes phone software has to sync with your PC to load the music. The phone providers want it to be able to download music directly from iTMS over their networks, and then charge a small premium for the delivery method.
So until Apple & Motorola add this into the software, no-one will push it.
As for Gates, do you honestly think he can push Vodafone, T-Mobil, etc. around? I don’t, those are big fish he’d be dealing with.
I think carriers’ thought are very simple. If Motorola introduce the phone and do not deliver phone until summer, then the carriers won’t able to sell phones for three months (or until the phones become available in volume). Chances are after Motorola’s non-announcement, carriers support lines probably got flooded with people asking to preorder the phones. So, they probably asked or insisted on Motorola to delay the announcement until they have enough phones in stock.
I work for a major carrier.
Motorola and Apple would not have proceeded if carrier support wasn’t there. It is a ramp-up supply issue, not an issue with carriers trying to kill the idea. If we wanted to kill it, we would have, and you never would have heard about it at all. Motorola iTunes phones will be released this year.
I for one am sick and tired of cellular carriers that offer medicore telephones designed primarily to enhance revenue streams with a myriad of add-on data services at the expense of basic phone features. Meanwhile, customers often cannot find information about each model’s RF capabilities (an indicator of a phone’s ability to pull down a strong signal), see screen shots (before buying) to evaluate the software interface, or even easily find the models that connect to computers for capturing address book (and song) data. and the sales people do not know the products either.
These carriers all have their priorities wrong. Generally, they do not seem to be concerned about the tools and features the customer needs. Features like Web surfing, text messaging, still and (and video) photography, and even iTunes compatibility are nice and even important to some, but the marketing and sales experience should NEVER overshadow the most basic capability — making and receiving phone calls.
I certainly would love to find a good business phone with iTunes and Mac Bluetooth capabilities. However, give the cellular carriers history of ignoring customer needs, I have to wonder if we’ll need Apple to go the route of becoming a private label carrier that licenses the use of spectrum from Sprint PCS (as Virgin Mobile has done) to ever see this done right. I fully expect the cellular carriers to muck it up.
tend to agree with anonymous. It’s a logistics deal. If the carriers didn’t want it, Motorola wouldn’t have developed it.
This has nothing to do with Microsoft. The carriers and music labels generate huge revenue selling ringtones. If users can upload their own songs, it kills the ringtone business. And so the ringtone business is killing this phone.
Phone Guy – really? What huge market?
Frankly, I am a gadget junkie. I have 3iPods.
The idea of a iTunes cell phone does nothing for me. In fact, IMHO I think it a pretty stupid idea.
Personally, I like having a seprate gadgets to do seperate things. That is why I like my iPod – it is a MUSIC player. My cell phone is for a completely different function.
Fuck all this “all-in-one” stuff.