APPLE SMART PHONE IS COMING... MOTOROLA'S ED ZANDER BLASTS IPOD NANO

Motorola's Ed Zander admitted that Apple will launch their own smartphone in the future. Supposedly as a joke, he ripped into the iPod nano:

"Screw the nano," said Zander. "What the hell does the nano do? Who listens to 1,000 songs? People are going to want devices that do more than just play music, something that can be seen in many other countries with more advanced mobile phone networks and savvy users," he said.

However, while not denying the comments were made, Motorola has said they were taken out of context.

"Motorola has a great partnership with Apple," said Motorola in a statement provided to MacCentral. "Unfortunately, Ed Zander’s comments made at a conference in San Diego on Friday were taken out of context. During the Q&A session, one questioner repeatedly asked what Zander thought of the Nano. Jokingly, Zander said he wasn’t there to talk about the Nano — but to talk about the next big thing happening in the industry - the fusion of the phone and music. ROKR with iTunes was a good beginning, he said, and there’s more to come." (full article)

I assume even if Zander's comments were in jest, it reflects his arrogance being in the mobile phone industry which dwarfs the iPod and all other consumer electronic devices in numbers and revenue. And he's right that people want more than music from their cellphones (i.e. Korea, Japan, and certain European markets), which is an area of expertise that Apple has to acquire before attempting to enter the mobile phone market. It will be interesting to see what Apple's initial entry into the market will look like.


[tags: apple, ipod, nano, itunes, steve jobs, ed zander, motorola, mobile, cellphone, wireless, tech]