After a conference call at work today, it was made official that starting tomorrow the first phone with iTunes will be available for sale. There were rumors about this Motorola and Apple collaboration for months but the rumors eventually died until the buzz resurfaced last week at work, and all of a sudden the product hits the streets tomorrow. I already have an iPod but I kind of want this phone dubbed as the "ROKR". Aside from my lighter, a pack of cigarettes and car keys, I also carry around my Razr, Blackberry and sometimes my iPod. I know this thing won't replace my iPod, but it does mean one less thing in my pocket on some days where my music tastes aren't so picky and can live with less track choices. Yup, no internal hard disc drive here, the thing works off expandable memory cards and supposedly ships with 512 megs of memory. When you think about it, you're just getting a phone with expandable memory that has iTunes as the music player, similar to Sony Ericsson's new line of Walkman phones that use Memory Stick Duo and Nokia with their proprietary MP3 player that reads off of SD cards. Basically you're paying for the interface you see on Apple's iPod. (But everyone loves Apple- the OS rocks and is years beyond Windows XP. The people that talk crap about Apple are the ones hiding behind the fact that they were suckered-in by a slick salesman to by a Dell. I'm kidding!)
Aside from the fact that it has iTunes embedded, I don't think it does anything else special. Sounds like it will have the same interface as the Razr with a built in camera still taking snapshots at VGA resolution. Initially the rumor was that Apple was taking a step in the wireless arena and coming out with their own phone, but I guess they're just selling the use of iTunes software to Motorola. Too bad, it would be cool to have a phone that had a dock at the bottom of the screen and Expose working to switch screens. Oh well... Anyway, I'll post a review after playing with one at work.
Until then, my pockets remain full.
* * * * *Okay, so I played with this today and am not too impressed by it. Just as I thought, it has the same interface as any of the Motorola phones but just with the added iTunes player. It does have a pretty solid feel but the whole model itself seems so outdated. The software has a slight lag when scrolling through your playlist unlike using the click wheel on regular iPods that fly, but it does share the same interface as the color iPods meaning it displays album cover art as well. And no matter how big your memory card is, the phone will only read 100 tracks due to an agreement by Apple and Motorola. The memory cards look like a pain to use especially if you change from one card to another. The chip is about the same size and thickness of a fingernail and look like they can snap in half if you don't handle them carefully. The phone definitely is not meant to replace the iPod, but it can easily replace MP3 players that rely on flash memory, and if you are looking at getting a new phone and have had your eye on getting an iPod shuffle, then this would be a wise investment.
Honestly I would hold out on this one. The design is the biggest diappointment. I guess I keep forgetting that this phone is made by Motorola and was hoping for more of an Apple inspired design, otherwise I would be praising the whole idea. On the other hand, Cingular has exlcusive rights to this phone for the next few months and the point of purchase displays that hit the stores today have two empty slots to be filled. I wouldn't be suprised if we see two more models out soon.
So my pockets will remain full until then.
