MacWorld is just around the corner, and with it endless speculation that 2007 will not only be the year Apple finally throws its hat into the mobile phone ring, but also the year that the promise of a musicphone that can actually substitute for your digital music player of choice finally comes true.
Of course, it’s all déjà vu to us. I’m pretty sure 2006 was supposed the year of the musicphone, and maybe even 2005 before that. There are many good reasons consumers haven’t really embraced music/phone convergence yet, and it isn’t just the lack of one made by Apple.
So what would it take to make the perfect (Apple or non-Apple) musicphone? Click the jump to see exactly what needs to be done before we all leave our iPods gathering dust for good…
The Problem: Undersized Headphone Jacks
Perhaps the single greatest impediment to the widespread adoption of musicphones is manufacturers inane insistence in stuffing the minuscule 2.5mm headphone jack on their products, as opposed to the 3.5mm jack found on regular MP3 players. Most people are loathe to use any sort of size-changing adapter, and the realization that your $300 pair of Shures won’t fit into your phone is usually enough to turn people off for a long, long time.
Of course, there’s a familiar reason you find the 2.5mms on 90% of phones, and it isn’t size constraints (if a super-slim Nano can fit a 3.5mm jack, your RAZR can). Rather, it’s our good friend Ye Olde Yankee Dollar. As a cell phone exec recently told me in confidence, if you need a separate pair of headphones, you’ve got to plop down more cash for more accessories. I can’t even begin to tell you how bad this attitude is for innovation, and I shouldn’t have to.
The Problem: Miniscule Memory
The RAZR, SLVR, and (god-forbid) the ROKR are marketed as musicphones, but once you’ve loaded in Bejeweled, your contacts, and a party’s worth of 1.3-megapixel pics, there’s barely enough space for enough music to get you through your morning commute. Unless a phone comes with more gigabytes than a Shuffle, I’m not leaving my DAP at home.
The Problem: Bulky Phones
Of course there are specially-marketed musicphones that DO pack in enough megs to hold your new Tom Waits boxed set. Take the Nokia N92—the Finnish 4-gigger. Unfortuantely, it’s sort of ridiculous that this phone, like most mobiles that pack in more than a gig or two, should be bulkier than a RAZR and Nano taped together. Unlike Asians or Europeans, Americans value tininess more than any bleeding-edge feature. Since DAPs like the Nano and the new Shuffle showed us just how small they can scrunch a couple gigs of memory, there is now officially no excuse for this pocket-stretching nonsense.
The Problem: Subpar Streaming Music
In the end, the future of musicphones will almost certainly be streaming content—their always-on wireless connectivity is a killer app that should make your Zune’s Wi-Fi cry. And anybody who needs a sneak peak into the tech’s potential need look no further than EV-DO-enabled phones like the Sprint A900 (aka.. the Blade). The phone’s lack of more than a couple megs of memory should be a non-issue if you’ve got a high-speed network streaming decent quality tunes (provided through licensing deals with Sirius.) Still, this bit of tech is way too young. Current EV-DO network limitations prevent you from even being notified of incoming calls while the tunes are streamed, making your phone useless as, you know, a phone. In addition, the available content is limited (Sirius only licenses a few of their music stations, and none of their talk—so no Howard), and the price is kind of ridiculous. Still, once your phone is able to keep you connected while rocking out, and decent content becomes available at a decent price, this will almost certainly be the future of musicphones. And, unfortunately, this is the one feature that Apple’s history suggests almost certainly will not be part of their first foray into cellphonery.
Seth Porges writes on future technology and its role in personal electronics for his column, The Futurist. It appears every Thursday and an archive of past columns is available here.
The undersized headphones jack is one of my biggest issues with the current state of cell phones. Owning three pairs of headphones of various makes and models all costing over $100, I do not believe i should be forced to buy another that can only be used on my phone. Unacceptable.
I definitely agree that the musicphone market is still pretty immature (i.e. there is nothing THAT great out there). However, I love the ability to play music using my Treo 700p…..
Headphone jack – so so so neccessary and agreed.
I guess I’m in the minority when I want my components to have a little bit of heft (little bit, not fatty). RAZR thin is nice but not necessary. I’m waiting for the N95 myself..drool.
If anything, it is the network that is a biggest deal. With the faster 3G speeds rolling out people can take advantage of media options much more fluidly – if the speeds and network isn’t available then no matter how good the apple phone is i dont see it doing too well.
I really believe Apple will clean up on all of the four problems. I mean, even six years later, its still pretty amazing to think you can hold gigs of media in your pocket, along with the supreme experience that is all things Apple.
Here is my philosophy, almost all iPod owners would gladly purchase another. Its a lot of money to throw down, but at the end of the day it is worth it because it just works. Those people will be loyal to a new iPod product.
PLUS, a lot of people are getting sick of the 2-year contract. Its a model that only works because the consumer gets a “free” phone. But consumers are getting wise to this. I am at the place, now, and I suspect many consumers are already there, where I would gladly pay up front for a great piece of technology and be free from the 2-year ball-and-chain.
Which is to say, I think people will pay the $XXX for the iPod / phone. They can justify it by the iPod functionality alone. The phone is almost a bonus, a freeing bonus.
Lp
Phones need a standard sized headphone jack and a SD card slot for storage. My RAZR is not much bigger than my IPOD. If apple can take the 5G Ipod and modify it for phone capabilities they will have a nice little device there. I doubt there would be a hard drive, but a cheap, high capacity storage medium would do the phone well. You can pick up a 4GB SD card for under $70 if you really dig around.
The problem with a super iPhone market is that it really isn’t applicable to Apple’s monetary or profit models. The cellular phone market is based around the 2-year contract, which although is very unpopular, won’t be going away anytime soon. So manufacturers build their phones cheap (less memory) and less innovative (not super streaming market yet), because they know their users are in the end only buying their phones to make phone calls (and the occasional text). All the advertisements and gimmicks of a “music phone” is crap, because really if the consumer wanted to listen to music he would carry around a dedicated music player. Sure this concept could change, but the market is what it is.
Now if Apple is trying to market a phone, they’re going to stick to their guns and their current market plan, which is making a really great product that is innovative and cutting edge. That however means hefty prices. Heck it’d even look good with neat colors, slim shape, and simple styling. But again, this means EXPENSIVE PHONES.
Looking at the market right now, every wireless provider offers a huge variety of phones, from the free to the 50 dollar affordable to the occasional paycheck busting-right-out-of-Japan/Korea phone which costs a whopping 350 dollars. Apple could definitely stand to benefit by hitting this market, but then what? Their phone could not be any cheaper or else Apple would be losing money in making their phones.
All in all, 2.5 mm headphone jacks do suck, but buy a 2.5mm adapter. Low memory does suck, but I managed to pick up a 1gb microSD card for 25 bucks, you can too. If you really want to make your phone a music playing phone, it is possible, you just have to prove to Samsung and Motorola that you really want to listen to music. And right now, 99.9% of the market is willing to carry around an extra item like an iPod to do that rather than buy an expensive phone which will last only a two or three years.