Note: The photo illustration above is obviously not representative of what the Apple phone will look like. It’s the product of two-minutes worth of Photoshop work.

Thank god!

Joke, although I do hope they put in a little more than 2 minutes to the design ;-).

(Because if you’re looking for someone else to kiss your ass, there’s always Scrivs.)

You show me ONE article that says Apple is creating a phone from scratch and having Motorola manufacture it…just ONE. I guarantee once you do your research you’ll realize you were both cocky and wrong about the “iPhone”. Would I love to see such a thing from Apple? HELL YEAH.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but from what’s been reported so far, Apple and Motorola are collaborating to allow Motorola phones to play music from the iTMS.

Since when are all available details about future Apple products available in articles? You’re severely missing the point of all this. Of COURSE Motorola is doing the circuitry here. You think Apple has the skillset to do just whip up the innards of a cellphone? You don’t learn that overnight, and besides, Apple is not (and never was) in the chipset business.

Here are the points one should take from this announcement:

a) Apple has finally officially recognized mobile phones as a place they want to be.

b) Apple has a solid partner in Motorola who can produce the cogs of an Apple phone which Apple can’t (namely chipsets and core OS).

c) The phone which the announcement speaks of will be Apple branded (or at the very least, Apple co-branded).

d) By entering this market, Apple begins to exert their influence on not only the industrial design of the devices but the user experience and operating system as well. And that is what we all want. I couldn’t care less who makes the chipset. IBM makes the chipsets in Macintoshes but they are still Macintoshes.

Re-read the Forbes article again if you want some more evidence of exactly how much Apple is involved in the design, sales, and marketing of this device.

What isn’t clear, as you point out, is how “Apple-like” this first device will be. But this is the first device… the first step towards what everyone is so excited about.

Let’s just see how this turns out, then we’ll argue some more ;) If I had my way Apple would have done this a long time ago; my post on August 8th of this year discussed an “iPhone” (yes, you beat me to it).

It’s an interesting read. I quote an interview with Steve Jobs where he says the thing he’d most like to do that he hasn’t yet done is a PDA (the Newton doesn’t count?). Apparently he knows that PDA sales are stagnant, because let’s face it, you don’t want to carry a phone AND your PDA; they’re so inter-related that they need to be combined.

1. Apple is not developing a mobile phone.
   … they are assisting Motorola in developing an application to run on a Motorola phone.
2. Apple’s influence on the phone’s interface, design, and performance will (unfortunately) be limited.
   We’ll be lucky to see an Apple logo (or iTunes logo?) on the phone’s casing.
3. Convergence can only go so far.
   Let’s assume Apple and Motorola nail this one and we get the phone we’ve always dreamed of. Bluetooth, pictures, video, music via iTunesMobile, and it makes/receives phone calls … now are we expected to ditch our beloved iPods? Hell no, we won’t go. We’ve got just gigabytes worth of songs on our 20 and 40GB iPods, and there ain’t no way we’re giving them up for a mere (what?) two albums worth of music. It’s a bummer, but we’ll stick to carrying two devices.

   So we buy the phone, just for the sake of saying we have it. (And sure, we get to show it off to our office buddies and watch them drool.)

The bottom line here: Let’s just admit we’re excited for no other reason than because Apple’s involved. After all, if this phone is anything like what Motorola’s cranking out already, they’re gonna have a hard time (even with iTunesMobile, or whatever) converting me (and apparently you, too, Dave) from our current kick-ass phones.

Gah! I dun’t like Motorola as far as its current line-up of features or interfaces (as I’m a Sony Ericsson user) but probably Motorola will learn a lot from them (Apple), a lot!.

Btw…

There is something wrong with your comments display Mike, they’re spaced randomly far apart in Firefox 1.0 on Win2k.

I can throw a little more gas onto the Apple phone rumors. I was on a train this weekend, watching an episode of the Simpsons on my Treo600. The gentleman sitting across from me asked me how I liked the phone. I told him I loved it and we began a tech conversation. He mentioned that he worked for Motorolla. I told him I was a Macintosh consultant, and then he dropped the bomb! “I’ve got a scoop for you”, he teased.

Apparently some of his associates had been telling him earlier in the week about an Apple branded phone that had been circulating around the office at Motorolla. The phone had Motorolla components, but most certainly had Apple brandings on it. He said that he did not have a chance to handle the phone, but that his direct supervisor did. The phone was “sleek and sexy” in her words. He mentioned that there was talk amongst the people who had seen it that itunes and iphoto would factor into this device somehow. They also said that the phone had a slot on the top (media slot?) as well as what looked to be a usb 2.0 port on the bottom.

Here’s the link

“The photo illustration above is obviously not representative of what the Apple phone will look like. It’s the product of two-minutes worth of Photoshop work.”

No way! That would have taken me hours! (And probably a 3D application.) It simply looks superb.

I quote an interview with Steve Jobs where he says the thing he’d most like to do that he hasn’t yet done is a PDA (the Newton doesn’t count?). Apparently he knows that PDA sales are stagnant, because let’s face it, you don’t want to carry a phone AND your PDA; they’re so inter-related that they need to be combined.

It looks like the current plans are to merge the mobile phone and the portable music player. I suppose when the prices come down, the PDA could be merged into there as well — but for now, give people the applications.

Do we keep the camera in the mix or is that a fad?

“Everything to everyone” didn’t work for websites: Google beat the portal craze. But handheld devices are a different beast. On the Web, switching from site to site is a click. With handhelds, switching from device to device involves carrying them.