Marrying iTunes capability with Motorola Rokr cell phones was theoretically quite sound. MacNewsWorld has reported, however, that the new Rokr phones by Motorola are proving to be virtual hot potatos. The mobile phone return rate is roughly six times the usual for these new iTunes phones, according to the article. Apparently storage has proven to triumph over functionality with consumers, leaving them blindly apathetic to the over-hyped MPEG-4 playback of these devices. The Rokr iTunes phone only stores roughly 100 songs, a tiny portion of the relatively gigantic iPod storage capability. Pocket PC owners fortunate enough to have SDIO slots are laughing by comparison, albeit hobbled by a one gigabyte secure digital card. Couple it with the fact that quite a few PDA cases can store an additional SD card, and it's easy to see what occurred. Presumably, mobile phone owners simply couldn't stand the combined pointing and snickering of the iPod and Pocket PC masses. When Pocket PC owners are bedazzling you with their devices' versatility and fifth generation video iPods are becoming increasingly commercially ubiquitous at the same time, a swap is definitely in order. Throw on a Pocket PC iTunes counterpart like PPCTunes by the PocketMac Team, and you're off to the PDA races with iPod-like functionality, adding serious insult to injury. If PPCTunes really does halve the storage space that iTunes music files occupy on your device like it claims (I've admittedly haven't tried this download yet-- too busy gaming), this completes this sorry picture of mobile Motorola emasculation. Apple blames a poor marketing campaign, but it really seems like a case of bad timing with the video iPod newcomer knocking the Rokr to its knees. I'm opting to stick with Windows Media Player on my iPAQ for the time being. |
