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Motorola CEO criticizes iPod nano

updated 10:00 am EDT, Mon September 26, 2005

Motorola CEO on iPod nano

Motorola's CEO Ed Zander, who expects companies such as Apple and Dell to offer their own hybrid communication/computing devices, for Apple's iPod nano, which analysts believe took the spotlight from the company's launch of Motorola ROKR iTunes phone. "'Screw the nano. What the hell does the nano do? Who listens to 1,000 songs?' Zander said. 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."

by MacNN Staff

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groundwork
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2001

0

09/26, 10:13am | report spam | close Reply |
sure

You know what hurt the launch of the ROKR? The ROKR itself.

And the there's this: "more advanced mobile phone networks"

Exactly. And I'm pretty sure that is outside of Apple's control/responsibility.

PS, I'd rather listen to 1000 songs than make a phone call.

kadavila
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Apr 2005

0

09/26, 10:13am | report spam | close Reply |
What people want..

If he knew "what people wanted", he wouldn't have released the POS that is the ROKR. It kills me that these CEO's wanna trash a company that has innovated the entire computer and music industry for the good of not only itself but its competition.

coldfusion1970
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Nov 2004

0

09/26, 10:13am | report spam | close Reply |
iPod remarks

Boy, he sure seems to be a bad loser. Just becuase the Motorola phone has been slagged off in the press, its no reason to slate the Nano. I'm sure the next Motorola iTunes phone will be better once they learn from their mistakes.

ogun
Junior Member

Joined: Sep 2001

0

09/26, 10:16am | report spam | close Reply |
sour grapes

I take it that ROKR sales haven't been all that good, eh?

JohnnyFive
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Feb 2003

0

09/26, 10:17am | report spam | close Reply |
Two words.

Sour grapes.

technocoy
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Oct 2002

0

09/26, 10:18am | report spam | close Reply |
wow...

After apple even took the time to develop iTunes for this piece of shite, and he spouts off like that...

time for the iPhone. or s**** it, just buy motorola and make it into a REAL device company.

David Esrati
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jun 1999

0

09/26, 10:19am | report spam | close Reply |
Design- the difference

Hey Ed- You had a hot seller with your Razor phone- so why does the ROKR look like some dowdy grandma phone? It's all about design- if you want to be the cool company with the press- design a cool phone. I fell for the Samsung i500- even though it's palm/sprint integration sucks- just like your integration of iTunes with a phone- but- it gave me two things- a portable compact palm device- and a phone- you handed people a brick- apple handed people the nano- which is very s***. You didn't even have to get the iTunes integration right- you just had to have a s*** package.

Instead of spending all that money on s*** rockstars for your phone booth commercial- you should have figured out how to make the phone s***.

Crying about your ugly stepchild doesn't help either.

Better go back to the drawing board- asap.

climacs
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Sep 2001

0

09/26, 10:23am | report spam | close Reply |
Who wants to listen to

100 songs on their ugly ROKR instead of 1,000 songs on a s*** black iPod nano?

I was on a plane last week and a dude had a black nano. EVERYONE wanted to touch it and handle it, just like the commercial!

And quite unlike the ROKR. Whip that out in a bar and no one will give a s***.

Kristoff
Mac Elite

Joined: Sep 2000

0

09/26, 10:26am | report spam | close Reply |
All Phones Suck

The state of US Cellular handsets really sucks. This includes the RAZR and ROKR. Both are truely lamentable handsets--one has the gimick of being thin, the other has the gimick of playing music. Both are typically poor examples of what features a cellular handset should be in the year 2005. Where's my XHTML browser? Where's my J2ME MIDP 2.0? And for the love of GOD......where in the h*** is my 3G? What's with the slow menu response on Moto phones? What's with the random lockups? What's with iTap? WHY CAN'T ANYONE BUILD A GOOD HANDSET?

JohnM15141
Mac Enthusiast

Joined: Dec 1999

0

09/26, 10:40am | report spam | close Reply |
I'm a saavy user and...

The first thing I realized was I don't want to listen to music on my cell phone and use up my battery so I can't use the phone when I need it. I'll listen to music on a seperate device and keep me phone on standby so it's ready when I need it!

In my opinion he's got it all backwards.

ibugv4
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jun 2003

0

09/26, 10:40am | report spam | close Reply |
Kristoff

Take a gander at Nokia. my 3 year old Series 60 phone, while slow with menus at times, plays movies and take photos, plays mp3s and has an MMC slot. The new models, while pricey, offer 1.0MP+ cameras with flash and a host of other options. Basically, like everything else, you look for product outside the USA if you expect any usability and quality.

phillymjs
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jun 2000

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09/26, 10:43am | report spam | close Reply |
1000 songs

What does he mean, who listens to 1000 songs? I've got over 1300 in my standard playlist on my 30GB iPod. Variety is nice. The ROKR is a piece of c***, and considering how long it took them to get it on the market after a few false starts and whatnot that got anticipation really high, nobody should have been surprised at the resounding yawns when they finally announced such a boring product. Wow. It's an ordinary phone, with iTunes. Whoo freakin' hoo. Where's the cool, innovative design?

chadpengar
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Oct 2001

0

09/26, 10:44am | report spam | close Reply |
no phone -- music integra

there will be no successful phone -- music player combo product that takes over the music market in the next 5 years. The interafce to a phone is diametrically opposed to the preferred interface for music (the iPod) and the battery life sucks too much to make a meaningful player AND phone that is not always stuck on a charger. Unless you want to go back to the old brick phones. Analysts are always talking about this integration as the future -- BS!

lepton
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jun 2005

0

09/26, 10:45am | report spam | close Reply |
It's the junk USA phones

There are very good phones, just not in the USA. I'm clueless as to why the US companies don't offer the best phones. I'm in NY and buy phones that are not available here. I just got a SonyEriccson k750i and it is wonderful. As for Moto, a MUCH better iTunes phones would be based on their e680. Not perfect, but: Linux based, Apple could modify any or all of its internals easily. Drop in an iTunes app, change the UI, put mini-OSX in there, whatever. Stereo speakers, stereo Bluetooth, MPEG4 decoder, iPod-ish controls, _lots_ of other things, not too expensive, smaller than SE P910, in production. Of course, not available in the USA. I predicted this would be the Apple phone, which would be a phone, iPod, and VIDEO player.

fluffmaster
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Sep 2005

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09/26, 11:18am | report spam | close Reply |
Sour grapes is right..

Must still be bitter about the whole g4 thing. Maybe if his phones didn't SUCK so bad he wouldn't have tantrums in public. Can't imagine that doing much for his pr..

At this rate though he's sure to have a successful alliance with Apple... (hahaha bbbllllppppp!!!!)

Take some notes from NTT Docomo and stop polluting the world with these terribly lame handsets...

LordJohnWhorfin
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2002

0

09/26, 11:20am | report spam | close Reply |
The markets are listening

But not to him, or the ROKR apparently. Apple is up big time again today. I guess he hasn't recovered from the ROKR phone being called the STNKR by the press...

outsourced
Forum Regular

Joined: May 2005

0

09/26, 11:20am | report spam | close Reply |
Responsibility

The idiot should take responsibility for his own actions, and quit whining. It sure isn't Apple's fault for promoting an Apple product (nano) at an Apple event.

If the s****** wants to promote their brick, then let them have their own show!

I guess the CEO is 'above the law,' and any mistakes must be put upon someone else -- even if it has to go outside of Motorola.

macaudioguy
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Sep 2005

0

09/26, 11:23am | report spam | close Reply |
Moto doesn't get it

jeez, talk about not understanding your marketplace-or your customers-this guy doesn't have a clue. I'm sure Steve's thrilled with these comments. I'll bet Apple's hard at work on the next rev of the iTunes software for Moto...you think? Good job, Ed. Now get back to work on those 3ghz G5's, will ya? Steve says he wants to buy a bunch of...oh wait. Never mind. Want to buy some Motorola stock?

echo mirage
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Nov 2004

0

09/26, 11:33am | report spam | close Reply |
sore loser redux

my nano = 1,000 songs and impossibly small

Ed Zander = 1,000 tears and impossibly small

They're not so different.

Rod Martin
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: May 2000

0

09/26, 11:33am | report spam | close Reply |
Dear Motorola...

Payback time!!!

Love, Steve.

cgmpowers
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 2003

0

09/26, 11:39am | report spam | close Reply |
1,000 Songs!?!?

Hey for the "who the h*** listens to 1,000 songs" crack...Here's my math on my iTunes an iPod..

My entire iTunes library has 21,367 songs (including a SMALL handful of Podcasts, voice notes, Audiobooks, sound effects, etc.. that's non-music).

That 21,367 song library is a whopping 86.11 GB songs. 1,514 songs (5.56 GB in size) were purchased from the iTunes Music Store. So that alone blows the 1,000 song limit by a few (heh).

Of the songs I've rated, I have 1,454 songs rated 3 stars or above. That again blows the 1,000 songs.

Out of the 21,367 song library, I've listened to 1,118 songs more than once in the past year. That too blows the 1,000 song theory.

Sincerely Christopher Powers

benhur
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2001

0

09/26, 11:45am | report spam | close Reply |
sour

He should has made a better phone, that's all. It's true about US phones, they stink in general. There are good phones out there that would be great for iTunes. I would love to see iTunes with the Sony Ericsson W800.

He's also upset because they were ready to release the phone a while ago but Jobs wanted to wait. I'm assuming it's because Apple needed time to finish the Nano which took away all his press. It wouldn't have mattered if he made a good phone.

Warrenpeace
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Oct 2001

0

09/26, 11:48am | report spam | close Reply |
Here's to the crazy ones

Wow, those are really professional comments. He's nuts. I say he's replaced in six months or less.

ogun
Junior Member

Joined: Sep 2001

0

09/26, 11:50am | report spam | close Reply |
1000-song max

I stopped buying new music some time ago, about when the music industry started trying to prevent me from being able to put the music I bought where I wanted to put it. However, I've got a _lot_ of CDs. And LPs. And audio tapes. Right now I'm about two-thirds through putting my CDs into iTunes, one-third through my LPs, and barely started on my tapes, and I have over 90 GB worth of music on my main system. Yes, I want something which will play 1000 songs. Or more. And yes, the music industry have lost a lot of money when they irritated me. Not that they care.

jhorvatic
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Apr 2005

0

09/26, 12:09pm | report spam | close Reply |
mp3 player is just that

It's to play music and that's what people are buying them for. Why does it have to be anything else? If I want to listen to the radio I'll use a radio. But why? The whole idea of an mp3 player was to listen to your own music and what you want to listen to not what the radio plays.

JackNN
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2005

0

09/26, 12:13pm | report spam | close Reply |
Actually ...

I get the feeling Steve forbade them from putting iTunes on any phone that looked too cool, to avoid cutting into iPod sales. But eventually it will probably become available on the RAZR.

climacs
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Sep 2001

0

09/26, 12:21pm | report spam | close Reply |
Now we know

why ROKR debut was put back so many times.

It sucked so they wanted to make people forget about it with the nano debut.

h*** no, moto!

ff11
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Apr 2004

0

09/26, 12:40pm | report spam | close Reply |
ROKR =

ROKR = 2nd rate phone combined with 2nd rate iPod. A big bulky phone that doesn't even have a vibrating alarm, and a big bulky iPod that doesn't hold so many songs.

Motorola's problem is that you would be infinitely better off buying an iPod nano and taking whatever free phone comes with your service.

ZinkDifferent
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2005

0

09/26, 12:42pm | report spam | close Reply |
I love it...

..when allegedly 'professional' corporate leaders act like 12-year olds. Granted, it would help to know the context of Ed Zanders comments, but regardless of context, if he knew that his comments were public, there is absolutely no excuse for those kind of shots at a development partner that provided them with the software their 'flagship' phone is based on, and that gave them some big exposure for their porduct launch.

Let's face it -- Ed Zander is an a**!

I would suggest you all let the board of directors at Mororola know how you feel - I just did, and to boot, I just sold my Moto stock (meant to do that for a while, anyway), and converted it to AAPL stock (have a feeling it'll see more growth over the next few years than Moto will ever see).

List of the board of Directors follows - knock yourselves out:

Edward J. Zander Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Motorola, Inc. H. Laurance Fuller Retired; formerly Co-Chairman, BP Amoco, p.l.c. Judy C. Lewent Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and President, Human Health Asia, Merck & Co., Inc. Dr. Walter E. Massey President, Morehouse College

Thomas J. Meredith General Partner and Co-Founder of Meritage Capital, L.P.; Former Chief Financial Officer of Dell, Inc. Nicholas Negroponte Founding chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory Indra K. Nooyi President and Chief Financial Officer, PepsiCo, Inc.

Samuel C. Scott, III Lead Director; Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Corn Products International

Ron Sommer Former Chief Executive Officer of Deutsche Telekom

James R. Stengel Global Marketing Officer, Proctor & Gamble

Douglas A. Warner, III Former Chairman of the Board, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

Dr. John A. White Chancellor, University of Arkansas

MacWizard x
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2005

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09/26, 12:45pm | report spam | close Reply |
Right....

The iPod Nano does more than just play music Ed, or weren't you there at the Apple Expo when your ROKR phone was introduced?

Overview

Only .27 inches thin and 1.5 ounces, iPod nano packs a lot into its diminutive design. Up to 14 hours of battery life(1). 2GB or 4GB of storage.(2) A bright color display. The Apple Click Wheel. A Dock connector that fits an entire ecosystem of iPod accessories. With so many features like these, iPod nano can change the way you listen to music � and more. Click on a feature to see it on the iPod nano display, then read about it here.

Music

Finding and playing music on iPod nano is simple. Menu options let you browse by artist, composer, album, song, genre or playlist. Want to mix things up? Click Shuffle Songs. iPod nano makes your music look as good as it sounds, thanks to a 1.5-inch color display. Album art appears alongside your songs, so you see your music as you play it. And when you dare to wear iPod nano, you�ll say a lot in 176-by-132 pixels � without saying a word.

Podcasts

The iTunes Podcast Directory features thousands of free podcasts � radio shows you subscribe to � including favorites from such big names as ABC News, Adam Curry, ESPN, KCRW, WGBH and many more. Browse and subscribe to podcasts, then sync them to your iPod nano and listen anytime, anywhere. Podcasts appear in their own menu on your iPod nano, so you can navigate them easily.

Audiobooks

The digital shelves of the iTunes Music Store are stocked with more than 11,000 audiobooks � including such exclusives as the entire Harry Potter series � so you can catch up on your reading wherever iPod nano takes you. Browse audiobooks from their own menu on your iPod nano. Set a chapter marker when you stop �reading,� and pick up the audiobook right where you left off. You can even change the read speed to suit you.

Photos

iPod nano holds up to 25,000 photos you can sync from your Mac or Windows PC via iTunes. Use the Click Wheel to scroll through photo thumbnails the same way you scroll through song titles. To see a photo full-screen, click the center button. You can even view photo slideshows, complete with music. Just select Slideshow Settings and choose the time between slides, the transition effect and the music.

Calendar & Contacts

Ever forgotten a doctor�s appointment or wished you had a friend�s address handy? Good thing iPod nano lets you take your calendar and contacts with you. With support for Address Book and iCal on the Mac and Outlook or Outlook Express on the PC, plus industry-standard vCalendar and vCard files, iTunes syncs your calendars and contacts so you can access everything with a quick spin of the Click Wheel.

World Clock

iPod nano�s nifty World Clock lets you check the time, fall asleep to music and wake up to it, too. Open more than one clock to sc

milhouse
Senior User

Joined: Jan 2001

0

09/26, 01:10pm | report spam | close Reply |
Someone's got

sand in their v*****...

I know, instead of *telling* us what people want, how about actually building some thing they *actually* want.

designr
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Apr 2002

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09/26, 01:20pm | report spam | close Reply |
My Treo 650 can beat up..

My Treo 650 can beat up your ROKR...

Over 200 songs on a removable SD card. The only drawback is the ugly Real Player interface. Apple should have made the iTunes deal with Palm...

And, I can watch TV on it too.

jfelbab
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2004

0

09/26, 01:29pm | report spam | close Reply |
Once apon a time...

Motorola used to be a well run company with keen thinkers and market savvy. Today they are just, well you can draw your own conclusions.

A much better approach Moto could have taken instead of their ROKR would be a pocket on the back of their RAZR case for your NANO.

Sorry Mr. Ed. ROKR is DOA. Bad design and 100 songs limit...what were you thinking? To say that you are "out of touch" would be the years biggest understatement. You are truly clueless as to what people want.

Guess it's time for Steve to take over the design of the next iTunes cellphone.

checo
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Sep 2004

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09/26, 02:50pm | report spam | close Reply |
just buy something else

I started looking more than a month ago for a replacement for my Sony t610, and wait for this announcement, off all products the only one I did think of getting was the Rockr, really a bad design, I decided for the Razr, maybe not the best phone but has everything I need and like, I will like to buy the Nano to save size and weight for the items i need to carry: Razr, Nextel phone and iPod

technohedz
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jul 2000

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09/26, 07:50pm | report spam | close Reply |
Hating my Mot

My 1st gen startac will beat up my RAZR in rugged good looks and retro numerical display any day. In fact it even worked better.

The way I see it. Apple got in on Mots deck and now they can deploy to the rest of their line..except Motorola doesn't know whether it is coming or going w/ 4 different operating systems and every single on sucks. Yes, get into it and they just straight up suck. About the best thing mot had going was 'quad-band' ...hmn.. I don't see that on the specs for the phone. So guess you aren't buying the phone like it's a consumer product, your buying a contract that comes w/ a phone that has an extra app on it. All this did was lend a little bit of 'it's possible see' to itunes mobile and get carriers to ...pay attention.

The phone sucks ok. Say Nokia's n91 comes on the scene and apple releases itunes for symbian. killer phonage right there.

I think the iphone/phone integration is one of the examples where Apple is purely going after the ITMS props.

How would it have looked if Mot released the phone, Apple suffered all this bad press, then the nano came out? Mot would have sold a handful and Apples rep would be junked.

Learn CEO speak 'a learning experience' is better than a temper tantrum. If Steve Jobs can mature at his age then so can you.

In the end...Mot looks bad. In fact, it's almost as if they are putting themselves down so that other phones win out.

The Wolf
Dedicated MacNNer

Joined: Jul 2001

0

09/27, 11:52am | report spam | close Reply |
Treo 650

"My Treo 650 can beat up your ROKR... Over 200 songs on a removable SD card. The only drawback is the ugly Real Player interface. Apple should have made the iTunes deal with Palm... And, I can watch TV on it too."

Try pTunes ($15) with an iTunes skin ($0-$3)!

http://www.pocket-tunes.com/purchase.html

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Motorola CEO criticizes iPod nano

updated 10:00 am EDT, Mon September 26, 2005

Motorola CEO on iPod nano

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sure

What people want..

iPod remarks

sour grapes

Two words.

wow...

Design- the difference

Who wants to listen to

All Phones Suck

I'm a saavy user and...

Kristoff

1000 songs

no phone -- music integra

It's the junk USA phones

Sour grapes is right..

The markets are listening

Responsibility

Moto doesn't get it

sore loser redux

Dear Motorola...

1,000 Songs!?!?

sour

Here's to the crazy ones

1000-song max

mp3 player is just that

Actually ...

Now we know

ROKR =

I love it...

Right....

Someone's got

My Treo 650 can beat up..

Once apon a time...

just buy something else

Hating my Mot

Treo 650

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