Chicago – Nana Furman doesn’t own a mobile phone, preferring not to be pestered with calls during her private time. But Furman, a young Chicago professional, is a big fan of the iPod and all things Apple.
So, if Apple Computer were to launch a cellphone – one with links to Apple’s Web music store and other Apple applications – she might reconsider, saying she would “definitely be intrigued.” Apple watchers and wireless-industry observers think a lot of people would be intrigued.
In fact, they expect the iPod maker to launch its own phone and wireless service, calling it a logical extension for Apple and its famous brand.
Phones are increasingly becoming stylish multimedia affairs, replete with music, video and data – all familiar terrain for Apple.
Plus, the music-phone market is expected to be a lot bigger than the MP3-player business, yet the former is still in its infancy.
“Nobody has come up with the definitive music experience on a handset yet,” said John Jackson, a wireless-industry analyst at market researcher Yankee Group. “It’s a very open opportunity. It has powerful potential.”
But an Apple phone would entail some powerful risk, too, analysts say. The mobile phone business is far different from – and more competitive than – the MP3 player business.
Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple wouldn’t comment, saying it doesn’t discuss product plans.
Earlier this year, though, Apple applied to the federal government to trademark “Mobile Me,” an appellation that would cover mobile-phone services, among other things.
Meanwhile, the Apple phone rumor mill “has been spinning furiously,” said Jackson, who believes Apple will prove the rumors true. “On the bulletin board of some (contract manufacturer) in Korea or Taiwan sits a prototype of an (Apple) phone.”
If it is being built, its arrival time is uncertain. But Jackson and others say sooner is best for Apple: Phone makers and wireless networks are beefing up their own music offerings.
“If (Apple) doesn’t do it this year, there’s little sense of doing it,” Jackson said. “Nobody is sitting still.”
Just look at phone maker Sony Ericsson. It has parlayed Sony’s famous Walkman brand into a music phone that has recently become a big hit. The Walkman phone helped propel a tripling of Sony Ericsson’s first-quarter profits.
Apple has dabbled in cellphones through a partnership with Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola. After much ballyhoo, Motorola in September launched the Rokr E1, the first non-Apple device to include iTunes, Apple’s Web-based music service. The Rokr was panned for being bland and for storing only 100 songs, far fewer than most iPods. A second Motorola iTunes phone was far more stylish but still held only 100 songs.
Motorola’s iTunes phones have been “clearly designed not to interfere with the iPod,” said Ross Rubin, a consumer-electronics analyst at NPD Group. Apple has no intention of letting a phone it didn’t make cannibalize iPod sales. More than half of Apple’s sales now stem from music.
In North America, mobile phones are primarily distributed through wireless carriers such as Cingular and Sprint. Carriers subsidize the cost of phones to consumers by tying the handsets to wireless service contracts.
