Apple And Motorola Work To Bring iTunes Music To Cell Phones

[Kent Pribbernow]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2004/07/26/applemot/' target='_blank'>http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2004/07/26/applemot/</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Apple Computer Inc. CEO Steve Jobs told attendees of a Motorola event via satellite that Apple and Motorola Inc would partner to allow users to transfer iTunes music to their next generation mobile handsets. Apple will create an iTunes mobile music player, which will be standard on all of Motorola's mass-market music phones."</i><br /><br />If only Apple would bring this iTunes Mobile player to <i>other</i> devices as well, like PDAs. :cry: Imagine being able to download music via iTunes right from your cell phone and transfer tracks to any device; PC, Mac, PDA, Cell Phone, iPod, etc. That now would definitely be cool.

[Janak Parekh]

Kent, you know better than that... Jobs is anti-PDA, and really doesn't care about that market at all. I doubt we'll ever see Apple-supported AAC support on Palms or Pocket PCs. As it stands, there is exactly one player on Pocket PCs that supports AAC in the first place, and only nonDRMed at that.

--janak

[entropy1980]

Actually this explains a lot of the info surrounding the media stuff about the MPX and it's support for AAC.... looks like MPX may be one of the first to support this (?) let the speculation begin!!

[Kent Pribbernow]

Kent, you know better than that... Jobs is anti-PDA, and really doesn't care about that market at all.

Like I said...If only. Honestly I think Jobs is right. The PDA market is flat with little growth prospects. Cell phones are and will always be the mobile device of choice among consumers. It makes sense to target that segment rather than PDAs.

[Cameron K]

*sigh* Something tells me that even though Motorola makes all of Nextel's phones, none of the new models will have this functionality. Yet another time when nextel users get the short end of the stick. If it weren't for direct connect, I would have switched to a real carrier by now.

[lorienferris]

It seems to me that the question should be what platforms will apple port its software to rather than what kind of device will play back the music. With the convergence between phones and PDAs going on right now, the question for the future is which OS to support: PocketPC and/or Smartphone from Microsoft, Symbian and related OSs, PalmOS, or something else? Or perhaps Apple will make it's own new OS for these phones in order to protect the AAC format and for copyright issues?

If Apple does make a phone version of iTunes, I hope it will include internet radio streaming and music library sharing!

[Mojo Jojo]

Thinking about it for a moment I think Apple is protecting its iPod market by *NOT* bringing it to PDAs.

As PDAs and Personal Media Players start to have larger storage abilities there is a possible risk that people will migrate away from a product that Apple makes and they would lose sales.

I think the key portion of that message was 'mass-market' which suggests no external storage options and low internal storage devices. I would guess perhaps in the 128mb range to 256mb to keep costs low. This would allow them to store a small selection of songs and not effect iPod sales, allow Apple to compete somewhat indirectly with the smaller flash storage devices, all while moving to a new market niche before others (at least to my knowledge... has windows done WMA to cellphones?)

While this doesn't really float my boat (I would rather have a strong reliable signal in my cell phone before camera and iTune songs!) I think Apple is trying things out and trying to keep the buzz going.

[dean_shan]

This seems more like a W?BIC! feature then anything. How many people are really going to listen to music on their cell phone for an extended period of time? Imagine the battery life.

[mrkablooey]

Good thing my v600 has 5mb of storage!! :wink:

[Suhit Gupta]

This seems more like a W?BIC! feature then anything. How many people are really going to listen to music on their cell phone for an extended period of time? Imagine the battery life.
It would make for a good feature for phones that are pocketPC phones and/or phones that are expandable with SD/CF cards.

Suhit

[Suhit Gupta]

This seems more like a W?BIC! feature then anything. How many people are really going to listen to music on their cell phone for an extended period of time? Imagine the battery life.
It might make for a good feature for phones that are pocketPC phones and/or phones that are expandable with SD/CF cards. But I agree with you, it is more of a W?BIC! feature.

Suhit