While last week’s unveiling of the Motorola iTunes phone elicited many bland reactions — mostly because pundits were expecting something truly revolutionary — Business 2.0‘s Matthew Maier believes that “holding off on the iPhone was a smart move for Apple.”
Why? He answers: “Because [Apple] let Motorola focus on the hardware design while it remained focused on the iTunes software industry, ensuring it worked on a device with a much smaller processor and far less capacity than a typical PC.”
Mr. Maier adds that, in light of how the cell phone industry works, the Motorola ROKR was “the smartest decision Apple could make,” because “it’s actually [the] wireless carriers that Motorola, Nokia and other vendors have to please … The difficulty of creating its own phone without alienating carriers kept Apple from creating what many were hoping for — the iPhone.”
“Of course,” he adds, “that day could still come. If, as widely reported, Apple chooses to launch its own virtual network, there would be nothing keeping it from creating its own handset. Certainly it has a rabid enough customer base and clear understanding of the consumer market to do so.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Maier says, this release is “a good start and likely just a precursor of things to come.”