When Steve Jobs announced Motorola's iTunes-enbaled cell phone, he mentioned that it played 100 songs. I commented that it must contain about 400MB of memory. Actually, it holds a 512MB flash chip, but enforces a 100-song limit. This is the kind of bizarre, inexplicable DRM that brings out conspiracy theories. One poster in the Pho list (which is bashing on Apple so hard this week that I can sit back and relax) suggested that Apple wants the phone to fail, in order to demonstrate that cell phones can't replace iPods.
ROKR's 100 Songs
Reader Comments
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Your point about Apple-bashing is taken, and perhaps it's time for one of my periodic moratoriums. However, in this post, can you possibly defend a device that arbitrarily limits the number of songs it can hold? Do you really think it's wrong for this blog to point it out or criticize it?
Anyway, thanks for the comment and I hope you haven't removed my feed just yet.
3. Brad is never fair to Apple, but that doesn't preclude us from being fair to him -- restricting you to 100 songs even when you could theoretically hold more does smell funny. It's especially weird when you consider that there isn't going to be a whole hell of a lot of difference between 400 MB and 512 MB. The iPod and even the iPod Nano has nothing to fear from the ROKR.
Is this a restriction that comes from Apple, Motorola or Cingular? The only answer that makes sense right now is that Apple doesn't want the ROKR eating into sales of its 512 MB iPod Shuffle, but considering the price of the phone ($250 with a 2-year contract), I wouldn't sweat it.
5. while i think the 100 song limit is a waste of perfectly good space (and hope a hack is on the way from someone), the strategy makes perfect sense from a business standpoint. moto plans on releasing a whole line of rokr phones, presumably ones with larger song capacity. limiting the songs allows them to make simple, exact claims on song capacity (i will reiterate that i think the limit sucks and should be hacked)
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by the badge
6. I think Apple are close to shooting their own feet , sony has an ipod bashing device out and partner with ericsson.The ROKR is a cracking phone and shed loads better than their shuffle or nano as it has speakers built in ( yeah I know they are tinny , but they work and yes I know the menu is slower but who cares once its playing ). The 100 song restriction deserves a hack as the phone is pretty bloody good, and if you use bluetooth in the car , it halts the playback when you get a call.
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Glenn
7. I think Apple are close to shooting their own feet , sony has an ipod bashing device out and partner with ericsson.The ROKR is a cracking phone and shed loads better than their shuffle or nano as it has speakers built in ( yeah I know they are tinny , but they work and yes I know the menu is slower but who cares once its playing ). The 100 song restriction deserves a hack as the phone is pretty bloody good, and if you use bluetooth in the car , it halts the playback when you get a call.
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Glenn
1. If Steve Jobs came out on stage and announced that Apple would be selling solid gold bars for 15 cents a pop, you would race to the keyboard to post a whining little rant about how Apple was forcing you to accept a gold bar with that obnoxious designer logo stamped on.
Well, you know what? Your ceaseless, utterly predictable, and increasingly pointless Apple-bashing has gotten tiresome. Your readership just dropped by one -- and I strongly suspect I am not alone.
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by stav wyneken