No more Motorola Phone with iTunes

I'm not aware of any official announcement on this in either direction... There's a recent ROKR that's now using RealPlayer, but Motorola has for some time been releasing various models with different media players on them... For instance, some V3i's have iTunes, while others have Motorola's own MP3 player (although I think those are called the "V3m")

If there ever is an iPhone... Right now there are wild rumours and speculation about an impending release of an iPhone, and some fragmented reports from foreign manufacturers, but no solid evidence that Apple is going to actually produce one.

Releasing an iPhone would be very difficult for Apple, as the cell phone market is a whole different playing field... Apple would have to cooperate with the carriers and try to drive the business through them for it to be particularly successful. It's a cutt-throat industry, and this is why their partnership with Motorola made much more sense than entering the market directly.

The various carriers have a long habit of demanding that phones be configured their way, which is the main reason why Motorola has so many different models. The U.S. carriers that don't carry the iTunes phones do so because they'd prefer to market their own DRM-based ringtones, and even the ROKR and RAZR V3i do not allow iTunes tracks to be used as ringtones for the same reason.

About the only way that I could see Apple releasing an iPhone without giving up a lot of control over the product to the cellular carriers would be to make it an unlocked GSM device so that it was carrier-neutral, and simply sell it directly. The flexibility of a SIM card makes a GSM iPhone at least plausible. I don't expect we'll see a CDMA iPhone any time soon, as I'm not sure that Apple could get companies like Verizon et al to market it and sell it with the features that Apple might prefer to promote.

I think if the iPhone ever becomes a reality Apple would be very wise to make the product with Motorola as a partner.

Make a iPhone with a cell phone company that people trust like Motorola.
Make a iPhone with MP3 technology, easy of use and style from Apple.

Both companies win.
Each iPhone sold would count as one iPod for Apple and one Cell Phone for Motorola.

I think the only things stopping such a device from happening is it would be a nightmare in deciding how to brand the iPhone... Motorola would want the Batwing and Apple of course would need the Apple Logo and how to split the profits.

But want the hit device of this decade... This GEEK is sold on the idea.

It's unfortunate the way the cell carriers act, though it's understandable. I wouldn't want to give up revenue stream myself.

It's a shame because Apple's industrial design expertise would undoubtedly create one heck of a cell phone.

Of course, no one ever said Apple HAD to create a cell phone that used iTunes. They could always just build cell phones to diversity their portfolio of products.

Jobs was the first one who said "it's the software, stupid!" :D well, am paraphrasing. user's experience

Yeah, I don't understand why it's such an issue, especially when there's a Major for User Interface?? :rolleyes:

Say for instance with my college. We have a User interface major and you'd think one of them got a job around here to design the colleges website but noooooooooo they just make up a ####y ### one with some nOOb. :sigh:

Quality Companies will actually take that time to sort everything out and it will be better for them in the long run. Part of this is the damn public has to have some patients and think more with their brains than the money the have more of. :rolleyes:

Thinksecret site says the Iphone will be release in January. It will be a 2 or 4 gb version. Apple is in discussions with several carriers.

http://thinksecret.com/news/0612iphone.html