Apple unveils iTunes phone and iPod Nano

Jobs unveils new handset and miniaturised iPod

Tom Sanders in San Francisco, vnunet.com 08 Sep 2005

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs has unveiled the new Motorola Rokr, a mobile phone equipped with a special version of the iTunes music player.

"It's an iPod Shuffle right on your phone," Jobs said at the unveiling in San Francisco, referring to the Shuffle's similar storage capacity.

The Rokr (pronounced 'rocker') features built in stereo speakers and ships with a stereo headset including microphone that doubles as a hands-free set.

It holds up to 100 songs on an external 512MB Transflash memory card from SanDisk. Although the user could replace the memory card with a larger version to increase capacity, the phone has been programmed to cap the number of songs at 100.

Users transfer the songs through a USB cable from the computer to the phone with the iTunes media player.

The phone is available now in the US from Cingular at $249.99 with a two-year contract.

The GSM phone supports GPRS wireless data networks, but consumers are unable to purchase music wirelessly for now.

Ralph de la Vega, chief operating officer at Cingular, told vnunet.com that he expects a wireless music store to become available "within months".

The software will only play songs transferred through iTunes, and will not allow the user to play mp3 files put directly onto the memory chip.

Motorola plans to launch the phone in other parts of the world in the fourth quarter of 2005. Motorola's president of mobile devices, Ron Garriques, declined to say which operators would start using the phone.

Apple and Motorola first started talking about the phone in July 2004. Many analysts had expected the device to be unveiled sooner.

At the invitation-only event in San Francisco, Jobs also unveiled an updated version of the iPod Mini called the iPod Nano which is significantly smaller.

It comes with a colour screen and several peripheral applications including a calendar and address book.

A 4GB iPod Nano is available for $249 and a 2GB model for $199. Jobs promised that they will be available in stores this weekend. The Nano is available in black and white.