“When will Apple Computer pick up? Never mind the ‘remastered’ iPods, the souped-up PCs and the plans to bring Web video to your TV that the company has shown off in recent months: Apple enthusiasts–and some investors–want the company to roll out a mobile phone,” Rachel Rosmarin writes for Forbes.
Rosmarin writes, “And Chief Executive Steve Jobs, who takes as much care managing Apple’s press as he does overseeing its products, isn’t doing anything to discourage them. This summer, he let Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer whet appetites for a phone by telling analysts that the company isn’t ‘sitting around doing nothing’ about the wireless market.”
“Since then, techies have noticed strings of text lurking in Apple’s iTunes software code that refer to mobile phone compatibility. And the sometimes-right, sometimes-wrong Apple rumor blogs insist that the company has a deal in the works with wireless carrier Cingular that begins next year. American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu predicts that Apple could eventually sell 10 million units,” Rosmarin writes. “But what will Apple be selling?”
Full article here.
It’ll look like it should win yet another round of design awards for Jonathan Ive and, if the price and service rates are anywhere near reasonable, we’ll buy it since we need new cell phones really, really badly because, thanks to constant never-ending rumors, we’ve been waiting for this thing for nearly four years!
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I’m going with cube shaped.
The cell phone market is really weak right now: bad hardware designs, really bad UIs, horrid web integration, even worse computer integration (unless your phone is iSync compatible).
Apple could dominate the cell market just like the MP3 player market.
Thats dissapointing. I was expecting some new mock-ups. Here’s one of my favorites:
How Apple making a wonderful phone that is…UNLOCKED!
imagine, a quad band unlocked that you could use anywhere, just pop in your sim card.
I would pay hefty premium for something like that.
MW= school; as in the other phone companies could get schooled on how to do it right.
I hope they make one in brown. Nothing’s cooler than that.
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Honestly, as long as it’s not UPS/Microsoft brown, I don’t care what it looks like. As long as it just works–like every other Apple product.
m
I hope it’s true that Apple will realease something in January. I need to get rid of this horrible RAZOR phone from Motorola. There is so much room in the US maarket for mobile phone innovation. Apple would dominate the industry in a littel over a year of their product being on the market.
“I’m going with cube shaped.”
I can only hope and wish!!! I’d buy one in a second.
Is it just me or does it seem like anyone could have written this article? There is absolutely no insight in it at all. This is Forbes???
Apple Phone
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/9424/
John: I especially like the antigravity ability of that phone!
The iPhone won’t ring. It has a startup chime. Can that vibration feature be left on?
Here in Sweden it’s quite common to change carrier and bring your cellnumber to the new one so unless it’s one with really reception it shouldn’t be a problem.
The biggest problem is that Apple isn’t very interested in Sweden, no ads or anything.
Aluminum. Thin. Lickable.
Phones have become a commodity. For Apple to really make a difference, it should wait until it has a category-killer. Do away with all the annoying (and unsafe) aspects of conventional phones, making all others instantly obsolete.
MiPhone would be a sleek headset suitable for mono (one ear — legal while driving or biking) or stereo (relaxing, exercising or working). It would have a great little noise-cancelling mic built-in + bluetooth. It would hang around the neck when not in use — a piece of pop jewelry rich with hidden, magic technology.
Calls would mute/pause playback. Using the powerful audio inherent in the onboard iPod, Apple should incorporate powerful IVR and voice synthesis to enable users to easily navigate their phone book, caller ID, voicemail, dialing, text messages, music, audiobooks, podcasts, etc.
Bluetooth would connect with the phone itself — like a Nano with a Shuffle-type clip design (to stay in the purse, backpack or jacket).
I’d buy that.
The common idea thus far is that it’s in a candy bar form factor. I dont know how many times I have read that. I really hope it’s a flip phone in some capacity. there is no better form factor in my eyes for a phone. I love the fact that apple stock is gonna double over the next year
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I’ve been waiting for years too my busted down nokia looks so ready to be replaced… I would buy a bunch for the whole family!
It’s “souped-up Macs” not “souped-up PCs”.
… and I’ve been waiting for months for a MacBook Pro revision
I want to be able to cut my steak on an airplane with it…
Building iPods is one thing but making phones is a new category. This would be new to Apple. I would not be surprised to find that when Apple finally produces one that they partnered with Moto or Samsung to actually build it to Apple specs. Now wouldn’t that be the same as M$ farming out the production of Zune?
Mikal in NYC said
How Apple making a wonderful phone that is…UNLOCKED!
imagine, a quad band unlocked that you could use anywhere, just pop in your sim card.
I would pay hefty premium for something like that.
———
In Asia we don’t mind paying the price and not have to be linked to a particular provider,
Americans have let their phone companies locked their phones and try to lecture the rest of the world about freedom – go figure
I know what it looks like. It looks like it’ll never get here…
That’s the first freedom crackback I have ever heard from Asia. ROFLMAO. You know what that means right? You text message in Asia right?
As for cracking on freedom in America, it is still a whole helluva lot more free here in America than in any Asian dictatorship… I mean country.
IMHO, Apple would do better to create a convergience device, which would be an iPod, iPhone, and iPad rolled into one device. The device would run OS X Mobile, and utilize iSync to sync your Mail, Address Book, iPhoto, iTunes, QuickTime movies, etc., and have mobile sevices like webmail, Safari for browsing iChat Mobile for texting, video mail and video chatting.
Building a phone that does music is cute, but most people already have a cell phone with a contract that allows them to upgrade thier phones. The only way I would dump that contract is if Apple could give me the whole ball of wax in one device. And they also already have an iPod, and are used to the two devices and their sizes.
Compromising them both to put them together in some funky fashion would be interesting, but people will then look to converging MORE. So why not do that now?
rasterbator:
SteveJack wrote this for MDN on December 10, 2002:
http://www.macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/456/
What do you think?