When I'm not up to my ears in cell phones, so to speak, writing for PhoneDog, I also serve as Reviews Editor over at PBCentral.com, a destination for Apple Mac and iPod users. This January my two worlds could collide if the rumors come true and Apple unveils the "iPhone" as part of CEO Steve Jobs' Keynote Address at MacWorld San Francisco.
Interestingly, the Apple community has been abuzz about a possible Apple cell phone for more than a year now, while the mobile phone world has been lukewarm at best about the possibility. The reasons for both groups' reactions to the latest round of iPhone rumors are somewhat similar: Apple's joint venture with Motorola and Cingular resulted in the uniformly lousy ROKR mp3-playing phone. Apple fans insist that unburned of a partnership with Motorola (if not Cingular, as well), Apple could build a better mousetrap ... I mean, cell phone. Cell phone fanatics have seen too many lackluster music phones to get very excited about a rumored new one from a company that's never made a phone before.
Me, I'd love to see an Apple phone. In part because the iPod is the King of portable music players, and in part because Apple has made their name on cool industrial design and easy to use software. If they can build a phone with iPod functionality and an interface that's as easy to use as iTunes and iPhoto, I think they could make a name for themselves in the mobile phone market. We'll just have to wait and see...
