wired.com — Millions of consumers say they would jump at the chance to dump stand-alone MP3 players for a really good musical cell phone. But the industry's misguided business plans could kill the party before it gets started.
May 29, 2006 View in Crawl 4
mz00mMay 30, 2006
Battery life is the problem! People's use of each technology is different. I think most people use their MP3 player until the battery dies, but most people try to keep their cell phone with at least a bit of charge just in case they need to receive or make a call.I can hardly keep my cell phone or my ipod charged and ready for use whenever I want them... if they were running on one battery it'd be useless half the time.
cronus6May 30, 2006
Geeze, cell phones aren't like iPods, you CAN change the battery. The batteries are tiny for my SmartPhone.If I'm going on a trip (flying or long road trip) I always take a fully charged phone and fully charged spare battery.Frankly if I'm traveling I take the spare battery , universal charger and 4 (2-2gig, 1-1gig) memory cards, mostly loaded with AVI's of TV shows I've missed or movies. and it STILL takes up the same space as a Palm PDA in a leather case with a ton more functionality.After using my SmartPhone for over a year, I don't think I could ever go back to a "vanilla" cell phone again.
sdbryanMay 30, 2006
"Ads later, subscriptions first."When people read that how many think of the story of how to cook a frog. It's actually rather gruesome and probably apocryphal but the idea is to put the frog in a pan of water over a low flame and gradually raise the heat. What many seem to indicate is that even if the frog can read the scheme will still work.I don't think of Apple is acting as a great benefactor with the iPod but it was designed in the context where the iTMS was a late entry in the system so it is always possible to use the device without paying a subscription or even purchasing the music through Apple. You can buy a CD new or used and rip it at any compression level (or even lossless) for your computer and iPod. Do people really expect that to be the case with companies that have monopoly in their genetic code? Ribit.
czackMay 30, 2006
I recently bought the Sony Ericsson W600 Walkman Phone and I am surprisedly happy for it having no expandable memory slot. I haven't had to buy anything from my wireless carrier because now i can transfer anything via USB, and it has stereo speakers for my MP3's!!!. It's simply great. Granted, i would have liked 512MB or 1GB rather than 256MB, but next year hopefully they'll have a new phone with expandable memory.
geekeeMay 30, 2006
It's such a waste carrying around a device with 60GB of storage that can only play music. The thing should be a PDA that can do wireless internet, VoIP, and use a cell phone network. Plus, it should have an easily replaceable battery that can be swapped on the fly. Much easier to carry one gadget and an extra battery or two, then three or four dedicated gadgets. I'd also like the device to automatically sync up with my car stereo wirelessly BTW, and have GPS for finding new locations, as well as charge the battery if needed (plug in a cable).
dignonMay 30, 2006
Music phones are retarded... the interface always sucks, but most importantly all that time that you are listening to your music is draining your battery. I couldn't care less if my MP3 battery dies while I'm on the road, but my phone is completely different matter. A small phone (preferably one that is ONLY a phone) and an iPod Nano or similar is a *much* better solution, IMHO.
zbeastMay 30, 2006
It would be cool to have all these features, it's a nice, dream but when you see a device that has those feature that dream becomes a nightmare.There should be a new survey. it should ask the question of those who have these features on there phone. Do they like those feature and how well do they work.The net result will be. 1) they dont use them 2) the features suck.
feanor512May 31, 2006
Don't use Verizon then. Use a provider like T-Mobile or Cingular that doesn't restrict you from copying files on or off of your phone as much.