No, Motorola still didn’t announce the iTunes phone at M3 in Miami last night. But the company did announce a couple of music-focused handsets, the E680i for Asian markets and the E725 for American EV-DO networks.
The brief specs provided in the press release reinforce the notion that mobile-phone hardware is catching up to that of MP3 players, but what’s still unclear is if the needed level of usability, software and services are there yet. The hardware is already commoditized (though the E725 is about the only music phone around to sport a standard 3.5mm headphone jack) — it’s the software that matters.
Hence all the interest in the iTunes phone — Apple’s involvement (and the iName) create the expectation that the handset will work with the functionality and grace of iTunes and the iPod. But where is the device? M3 marks the third event in a month where an announcement about it has been scrubbed, with the latest official line being that Steve Jobs doesn’t like to launch devices before they’re ready to go on sale. This is a little curious, since Apple’s well-known for not being able to keep up with the initial demand for its new products, creating shipping delays that sometimes rival the lag times between announcement and release that Steve says he hates so much.
But it’s still more likely that mobile operators, rather than Apple are to blame for the delays. A significant problem for this nascent mobile music industry is carriers’ unwavering commitment to closing off their networks and only letting others play (and make money) according to their rules. Sound familiar? It’s the same sort of backwards thinking that plagues major record labels.
Update: Moto does deserve some kudos for one small point: choosing to use SD memory cards instead of the other obscure and expensive formats it and some of its rivals have chosen before.
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