Apple Needs to iPhone Home


Since Apple can now make an iPod slimmer than a pencil and cheaper than ever, it may be time to think iPhone, instead of the joint venturing with Motorola to produce the ROKR, which debuted to indifferent shrugs this week.

CBS Marketwatch argues that the issue of Apple producing its own mobile phone isn't about to go away. Given the fairly paltry specification sheet attached to the ROKR, that's not a surprising conclusion.

"If Apple pursues more relationships like the Motorola one, it will have missed an opportunity," said Gene Munster from Piper Jaffray, who is quoted in the article.

Yes, says Munster, to CBS Marketwatch, Apple will reap the rewards of an essentially free advertising campaign, run by Moto and Cingular Wireless, but that's not where the real dollars are. Apple doesn't even get a red cent for each phone sold.

Not everyone's convinced Apple should do this though; Neil Strother at research firm NPD, who's also quoted, thinks it would be a "distraction" for Apple to produce 20 million phones each quarter, particularly as the company has never been in the phone business.

Analysis: Time, gentlemen - please. Apple wasn't in the MP3 player business either: now look at it. Apart from which, Apple's R&D would simply design the phone; do the software and - who knows - it may simply be an iPod variant. They'd be crazy not to have the iPod brand name sitting at center stage on an Apple-designed cell phone.

What's more, there are plenty of companies that manufacture cell phones. It's not as if Apple will be building the thing itself. It's not as if Apple manufactures its own iBooks, PowerBooks or iMacs. Leave that to the Taiwanese manufacturers, who specialize in it.

Your thoughts?