Motorola CEO Ed Zander has given notice that Motorola is set to announce a direct competitor to Apple’s iPhone.
Speaking at the Software 2007 conference, Zander gave the audience a brief overview of the phone. Due to be formally announced next Tuesday, he described it as a “media monster”.
The new phone will support 30 frames-a-second, full-motion video and will incorporate incorporate support for SD cards.
“We are working with another company to deliver movies on SD cards. You can start watching unbelievable quality movies,” Zander reportedly said.
Unlike the iPhone, the new Motorola device will initially be targeted at the European market: the phone will work on the 3G platform that despite having a broad global presence, still lacks coverage in the United States.
He was surprisingly upbeat though on Apples iPhone, saying that the iPhone will stimulate the overall market for feature-rich mobile devices, including Motorola’s. “I think it’s [the iPohne is] going to, in some cases, reinforce what we have been trying to do and are doing with the mobile internet. Applications such as multimedia and video and photos and music are going to be done on these devices”.
Previous TechCrunch coverage of Apple’s iPhone here.
in part via smh.com.au Coverage at CrunchGear here.
We will see. We will see. I doubt they could match the iPhone.
That’s a brave statement, Caleb, considering the iPhone’s still locked away and its running on a comparatively slow network for data… with the social nature of Web 2.0 providing most of the content and fuel being stuck on a 2.5G network for a while yet might be iPhone’s Achilles heel… http://www.inte...phone-released/
Or, perhaps Jobs will really repeat the success of the iPod. It will be fun to watch either way.
I am still waiting for the iPhone to be a bust for business so Mike can honor our bet
Geoff, by the time this phone makes it to the US market I would bet the iPhone is 3G and as a result also updated materially.
Let’s pack more features into our new devices so that we can beat Apple!?!!1!
Publishers can write as much of this stuff as they like, but its all just a guess until the products are released. Good luck to them.
None of these devices are really braking news. Go to Asia and they laugh at the iPhone. To them the iPhone is so 5 minutes ago.
A few questions:
1) if the iPhone is coming out in the US (europe in q4, possibly), and this motorola phone is coming out in Europe, how is it a direct competitor?
2) did Motorola miss that part of Macworld where Jobs showed the completely innovative interface? is the motorola phone going to have a slick interface or just be the same old crap in a shiny new box? play movies and stuff is cool and all but that isn’t exactly a paradigm shift, is it?
3) where are the friggin pictures?? (this one is rhetorical)
Fabian, I often see this mentioned, but no one ever gives an example of these super-duper phones that are found overseas. Examples please.
Should be pretty exciting to see innovation in this field. Cell phones are still so lacking.
Moto makes great hardware but their phone software user experience is generally dreadful.
I suspect the iPhone will have a number of issues (it’s too big, I am dubious of the battery, EDGE blows), but the SW execution will be really solid.
Better than the iPhone that was announced, or than the one that actually ships?
Bet on the iPhone finding several key features (voice control, but that’s just a detail) that were denied in its announcement. I’d guess it will become a wireless media bridge pretty quickly (think Sirius/XM substitute).
All telecom companies are in such a rush to get every imaginable feature crammed into these devices, that they have lost focus on it’s primary objective. It’s supposed to be a phone. It’s supposed to be able to place and receive calls.
Yet with every new feature that gets added the reliability of the primary function suffers. The commonplace thing now it for people to have to reboot their cellphone because it crashed, or reboot it because the poorly coded third party horoscope application they installed has overloaded the CPU. How many of these cellphones can make it past a day without needing to be re-charged.
I say innovate, expand, but not at any cost. We have these multifunctional ‘phone like’ devices – Media Monsters as Zander reportedly calls them – running on networks that either can’t fully support their feature set, or force them to run at reduced throughput.
And with regards to Motorola, it’s time to stop riding the RAZR wave, or any other 4 letter derivative thereof, and make a phone that works with software that actually makes sense.
gilltots, i
nital launch markets don’t mean they won’t be competing head to head soon there after, and there are rumors that Apple will release a 3G version of the iPhone for Europe as well. I’d also note that the Zander made the link to the iPhone as well in his talk.
The iPohney,
Poohy poohy Phoo!
Ed Zander………A BIG YAWN
iPhone has the luddite cel phone manufactures shitting bricks
If nobody could match the success of something much simpler — ipod; what makes us think that they could come with in miles of iphone. I bet Ed Gander has an ipod. And he will have an iphone soon.
Hi-res video on SD cards? I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t understand why the iPhone is going to be popular at all. HELLOOOOO? I don’t want to watch movies on a tiny screen! I want to unify my life and have one mobile device to do everything I need while I’m out. And I want it to have an outstanding interface that is respectful of ME, not one that drives me nuts constantly.
*sigh* The mobile industry seems to be especially susceptible to buzzword-itis.
Previously I had suspected that Ed Zander is a wind bag dork. Now I am sure of it.
The market for mobile devices is not really in the US. The US is many years behind the advanced countries of Northern Europe, Japan, and especially Korea. The market here is fragmented, the networks are slow, and coverage is spotty. Even the BlackBerry and its competitors aimed at the US business and high-end consumer market is not really significant for the worldwide market. The action is in high speed delivery of rich content to consumers, particularly people younger than 30. The iPhone is elegant, but its initial US version is inherently crippled for now by the low bandwidth of the AT&T /Cingular network. If you are really interested in what is going to happen with mobile devices, look outside North America.
Its not the circuitry that ultimately matters: its the software running on the circuitry. No other company making cell phones can come anywhere close to Apple in software ease of use. Other companies simply don’t have the people who understand and/or care about designing no-compromise, best-of-class user interfaces.
The iPhone will appeal to the mass audience because it will be the easiest phone to use. It will have the easiest address book to manage and sync. It will have iPod functionality. It will have Safari. Non-techy people will instantly understand how to use it, will enjoy using it, will constantly be showing their friends/family how it works. The first time you actually see an iPhone in use makes every other “phone” feel like a relic from the 70s.
ITS THE SOFTWARE, NOT THE HARDWARE.
Watch this again if you need a reminder:
http://www.yout...r1TuFk&eurl
The problem:
All phones being made, are being done with “Carrier exclusivity” This makes the phone hard to use on other networks for a couple years, and also makes sure Cingular gets to pick what software is on it (bundled) …
- Is there a OpenSource cellphone project? …
– Until we fix the over priced (It doesnt cost $70 to make the $300 razor) market things like this will be for the rich and spoiled, not for the mass market.
I think Erik and Jeremy hit the nail on the head… Motorola makes beautiful hardware, but their software is the bane of many mobile phone users’ existence (including mine). Its horribly buggy, its difficult to navigate, its ugly.
Competition is a wonderful thing, but I think Motorola would have to completely overhaul their approach to user experience if they were to deliver a product that would deliver on Zander’s promise, and indeed the (as yet unverified) promise of the iPhone. It does worry me though that Motorola hasn’t delivered a decent user experience within the existing palette of media and phone services that is available and are looking to add movies to the mix…
Everyone bitching about 3G are just ridiculous. Neither Cingular nor Tmobile have 3G networks with worthy coverage, and most of you suffered thru the dotbomb dial-up days (i.e. 56K). Edge provides 212K, which is as fast as most people using GSM in the US are used to. Having used Sprint’s 3g it is quite fast, but for email and SMS (typical cell data usage) it isn’t necessary.
bdb has the right position, just not the right reason. You think Apple couldn’t put 3G in the iPhone if they wanted? Sure they could, and they would have gotten lots of good press in one of the only areas that they’ve gotten bad press about the iPhone. You think Jobs and his Marketing staff didn’t get that? Sure they did, but they picked the lesser of the two sources of bad press, because on this one, it’s not about the network, it’s about the battery.
Compare the number of angry customers who *really* want, need or use what 3G gives you over EDGE to the number you’d have if the iPhone only runs for a couple of hours. 3G consumes *much* more power and after all of the crap Apple took over iPod battery life, they were sure not to step in that again. People will wait for their Google maps to show up, but they’ll leave their iPhone at home if it runs out of juice twice a day.
You think that marketing team’s focused on that 10M first year target? Sure they are, but they’re also thinking about the years after that as well. 3G will come in due time, when the batteries are there to support it along with everything else the device is doing.
complain all you we always end up buying all these that nobody is ever really happy with
HOW ABOUT A F***ING PHONE THAT REALLY WORKS WELL, LIKE A HARD LINE PHONE???
i don’t see anything that my sony ericson w810i won’t do! once i got opera mini browser on it! there is no syncing, because there is no itunes, plus it takes a fullsize duo core memory card! the “walkman” is the best bet out right now…like i said show me something that this new phone does that my old phone doesn’t!
People make phone calls. Some people like to listen to music. Some get lost and need a map… They generally don’t care what acronym brought it to them or a micorsecond difference in delivery. The iPhone will carry a hefty weight of personality, built in and branded, enough that people might even pay for it. And in the end, that’s all that matters. Right stockholders?
to compete Iphone, motorola need some more feature than Iphone but in suitable price tag also.
mie imi place ft ft ft ft mult MOTOROLA (si iphone)