“Is this the iTunes phone? To be honest, we won’t know until we know (and we’re leaning towards this being more of a concept design more than anything else), but check out this mocked-up image of a handset sporting an Apple logo and the makings of scroll wheel that popped up in a presentation that Motorola execs recently made to analysts from Morgan Stanley in Beijing. They don’t list a name, model number, or any specs for the phone, it’s just smack there on the page right next to pics of the RAZR and the PEBL,” Peter Rojas writes for Engadget.
Full article with image here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple’s iTunes 4.9 contains many hints of iTunes music phone – June 28, 2005
Report: Apple and Motorola launch iTunes mobile phone on Tuesday – June 25, 2005
Cingular Wireless considering selling Motorola Apple iTunes mobile phone – June 24, 2005
No way that this is the real iTune phone.
Way!!!
Who says a phone has to have 18 buttons? Why not a scroll wheel?
I agree Sean, and there’s no way in hell that Macs will have Intel processors. Wait a minute….
Seriously, I doubt that Jobs would allow the Apple logo on anything that doesn’t have an absolutely killer design, and the phone in this image doesn’t look all that compelling. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
it is interesting how the scroll wheel is kind of inset into the button (which are there if you look closely). It’s a good idea anyway…real or not.
I think this design could work… needs a little perfecting if you ask me…
Kinda looks a little bulky and a tad on the ugly side.
i may take back that bulky comment…
but to me the scroll wheel just looks most like a green back glow behind the buttons… is that light a special touch sensitive part of the buttons?
hmm…. looks like just a concept design to me.
Wow, if they can include the scroll wheel interface like the iPod’s to iTunes phones they will blow any other mp3 player phone out of the water. The interface is gonna be key.
What exactly is ‘kiiler design’? If you listen to Mr. Ives it’s not about making something that looks cool or far out, it’s about getting rid of anything unnecessary until you are left with the simplist design possible – the fact that it may look cool is a natural consequence of our inner desire to eliminate needless crap! That said, Apple is at a little bit of a disadvantage here since they must cling to a lot of aspects in a phone that we are familiar with, for instance replacing the key pad with a scrool wheel might not work since we are so used to seeing it there although if you think about it, most calls we make are to pre-programmed numbers so really, there is no damn use for a keypad (except to add the number in the first place and for text’ing). I wonder which way Apple will go on this one, do they go with something that people say ‘oh yeah, that’s a phone’ or with something that people initially reject but once they use say ‘I can’t believe they didn’t do it this way from the start?’ I suspect from the length of time they have been working on this thing it will be the latter, but we’ll see.
I hope it is Apple making a phone for Motorola and not the other way around. Can you imagine Apple merging the innovativeness in the iPod (and in all Apple products) with the ubiquity of mobile phones?
Many areas of the world are making it illegal to use the mobile phone held in the hand while driving. What if Apple and Mr. Ives take on this challenge? What if Motorola stops adding $100 to a phone just because it has a $10 BlueTooth chip inside?
An analog clock is round and so is a scroll wheel. An analog clock has 12 segments, so does a mobile phone (0-9, #, *)… not too far removed from the rotary dials on early telephones.
The easiest solution is making the whole face a touchable display, including emulating the scroll wheel when in iPod mode.
But, no matter when us lowly bloggers are able to spew forth from our limited imaginations, you know that Apple will have something that is Wow-Factor times 10.
sDrawkCab “….you know that Apple will have something that is Wow-Factor times 10.”
Yeah…like the eMac…..
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Queeezie,
What about iMacs, iPods etc.? Don’t just focus on a budget Mac, it’s so unbecoming of you. Oh by the way, your name makes me feel sick.
“What exactly is ‘kiiler design’? If you listen to Mr. Ives it’s not about making something that looks cool or far out, it’s about getting rid of anything unnecessary until you are left with the simplist design possible – the fact that it may look cool is a natural consequence of our inner desire to eliminate needless crap!”
sd,
Very well said. Your statement perfectly encapsulates what I consider to be “killer design”, and that is exactly what I meant. Jonathan Ives’ genius lies in his ability to pare away the extraneous, leaving just the essentials. The phone in the image seems to me to be unnecessarily complex, but then again, I have no way of knowing what functionality the unit is supposed to possess.
Yuck. What the hell is that, Fox Mulder’s cell phone? No thanks. Back to the drawing board guys…
http://www.importgsm.com/shop/product.php?productid=100&cat=1&page=6
this is more likely in a different colour…
If Apple doesn’t design its own phone (which I doubt) and we’re stuck with an off-the-shelf Moto handset, please let it be the RAZR.
American company executives showing unseen technology in China? Never happen unless they want a clone phone released all over Asia before it’s even officially released.
Anyone know when this phone will be available in the UK? – as im about to replace my mobile within the next 2 weeks?
Also – does isync work with this phone?
Everyone goto Displays and change you color to 256 then go look at the Podcast icon in iTunes Prefrences…. Its not the podcast but an White Cell phone . Im not kidding. It changes depending on what setting you monitoe is……
here
Hmmm…. its true.
Change your display color to 256 and then open iTunes preferences.
The podcast icon is replaced with an icon for a white cell phone.
hei i’m a total newbie, i don’t know if you can or not import music from Ares to your ipod, because i did that and the stupid thig keep telling me that i can’t expel the ipod shuffle because its files are being used by other application. Is that because ther ares’ always open or what? because i’m not using any of the songs.. heeeelp haha this is giving me a headache oh an sorry if i wrote in a terrible english