Pic of Motorola's iTunes phone

This is just about the best (and only) pic we've been able to find of that iTunes-capable cellphone Motorola showed off yesterday. Looks a little bit like it's based on their E398 musicphone, but as near as we can tell it's an entirely new phone.

[Thanks, Tim]

[Dolomite @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Awesome! Any word on which carriers will have this phone? I can't wait to junk my crappy v710.

[Oliver @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

once again, i am so glad i'm not in the States. constantly this discussion about which carriers support which phones... how can you live like that??

[panpan @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Its a GSM phone... I think T-mobile is carrying it in Europe, so they will probably carry it here... Its trans flash, what's the largest trans flash out there 128?

[wol @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

whoa...does it have a bluetooth????

[Ryan @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

I was on the verge of buying an e398 about 5 times, but I just couldn't go thru with it because of the TransFlash -- they're apparently available upto 256Mb

I'm already using a 512 SD card on my Tungsten E, and I find that it's barely enough room, so I don't think I could cut that in half... I'd need at least as much storage.

With Motorola releasing so many phones with TransFlash memory slots now, they've gotta start pushing SanDisk to increase the memory density and production on those cards if they think that this is going to succeed at all, especially if they're hockin' iTunes compatibility now..

[Joe Henson @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

There was talk of it having 1gig... Not sure where I saw it but I know I saw 1gig someware

[NightFire @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Hope the menu is finally userfriendly. I have never seen a motorola phone with a userfriendly menu like a nokia or sonyericsson.

[Jy @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Chears Oliver!;)
i also wonder, how can they live that way. thats just so silly...

[Ted @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

I think everyone is going to be sadly disappointed with that iPhone. The menu on the right looks exactly like the regular old crappy moto interface, not an Apple phone "OS" which is what I think everyone hopes it has! Sadly, I think it's just going to be an iTunes capable Motorola phone. Cool for sure since it will play bought songs from the Apple store...but...hmmmm, give us a better OS Moto!!!

[Ryan @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

The phone on the picture is just for demonstrating purposes. This is to prevent competition from stealing the idea (according to motorola). The motorola CEO said that the company is going to focus on ease of use and design. In this way Apple is the best partner they could get since this is where Apple is best at. I guess the actual phone might be designed by Apple and revealed by Steve at the keynote.

[Gordy @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Well, so much for the "iPod-like navigation interface" mentioned in the other article. This is just another phone--albeit a white one.

[gmbh L.A CA @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

I have the E398 and it is sweet. I just hope that I can download the itunes program into my phone htat would be awesome! I have had this phone since april 04 works great with cingular and at&t cause its a quad band phone.this is the one of the best phones that moto ever made.

[Robert @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

who gives a crap? I just want a freaking phone from motorola that is blutooth and is compatible with isync. Is that too much to ask? They keep making phones for punks and not for the other 95% of us that work and do not listen to crap rap.

[gmbh L.A CA @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

the e398 has bluetooth and is 100% compatible with isync

[RGabo @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Funny how the phone plays U2 - Vertigo from HTDAAB :)

Forget Apple though, and play for sure ;)

[Guttrhead @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Robert

Punks listen to rap? When did this happen?

[Nikhil @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Don't tell me you were expecting a phone running on OSX ???? That's too much work for a partnership - Apple would do that alone.

This looks like a E398 with iTunes Application (maybe Java based) running on it.

Not a bad deal at all. If i'm getting a mini iTunes app and iTunes DRM support on a phone with expandable external memory, I would jump at it.

Good for putting songs for my drive to work.

Best Buy started selling TF cards.

E398 is an awesome phone - has stereo speakers, BT and TF - and that makes for a great speakerphone.

[kevin @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

this is what they come up with? disappointing. i want a more sleek good.

[Brett Favray @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

> Posted Jan 7, 2005, 1:06 PM ET by Robert

> who gives a crap? I just want a freaking phone
> from motorola that is blutooth and is
> compatible with isync. Is that too much to ask?
> They keep making phones for punks and not for
> the other 95% of us that work and do not listen
> to crap rap.


Can I just be the first here to say you're an idiot?
You don't like rap, and that's fine for you.
But what in god's name makes you think that the phone is going to force you to listen to music you don't want to listen to.

[Gene @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

It definitely looks like an E398.

Hopefully it's an upgraded one with a quad-band GSM radio for the Cingular and Rogers users in North America.

The only ones you can find now are the standard tri-band world phone. I've heard the quad-band ones were rare, thus very pricey if you were to find one.

The E398 is compatible with iSync but you must use a cable, as are all Motorola phones. Maybe that will change with this 'new' model.

I do wonder, for those that already own one, if they can download and install the iTunes app.
I would certainly hope so.

[Emu Tree @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

As the poster above mentioned, this is NOT the design of the phone - merely demonstration designs because they don't want the concept ripped off (which is code for Steve will be unveiling a Jonathon Ives masterpiece at MacWorld and would have beheaded us if we showed it here early and stole his thunder). This is reflected in how TWO different phones are in fact shown in the picture above.

[Rob de Jonge @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Am I the only one who is disappointed with the news about this phone so far? Or was I just aiming to high, wishing for a phone with bluetooth, wifi, a harddisk and support for both isync and itunes?

[spoon @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

"Emu Tree

As the poster above mentioned, this is NOT the design of the phone - merely demonstration designs because they don't want the concept ripped off (which is code for Steve will be unveiling a Jonathon Ives masterpiece at MacWorld and would have beheaded us if we showed it here early and stole his thunder). This is reflected in how TWO different phones are in fact shown in the picture above."

Those are not two different phones.THe are both E398 with differen faceplates, black and white. duh...

[xenocrates @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

does anyone know if the phone's software is entirely new from the current e398 phone? i currently have an e398 and it's an awesome phone. it would be better if the iTunes app is only java based.

[xenocrates @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

does anyone know if the phone's software is entirely new from the current e398 phone? i currently have an e398 and it's an awesome phone. it would be better if the iTunes app is only java based.

[MACALEX @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

This is fake pictures! This is an old E398, someone just made this up.

[MACALEX @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

I agree with spoon, we'll the real Apple/Moto phone only at MacWorld SF, and there will be Apple logo on the phone and Apple design, the picture that you posted is fake and present E398.

[Alex K. @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Posted Jan 7, 2005, 11:48 AM ET by Oliver
once again, i am so glad i'm not in the States. constantly this discussion about which carriers support which phones... how can you live like that??

i'll tell you how us americans live like that because i dont know if you get this but if you sign up for a monthly cell phone plan for 1 or 2 years you get a free phone or about $100-200 off on a high end phone. and really we don't care as much about specific phones all people care about is getting a camera phone we don't really care so much about the brand and the specific phone models. all of our providers have their own little advantages and are priced basically the same.

also i hear that people text a lot more in europe. (and yes ive been there but only to greece so that's probably a lot less like western europe) people here aren't so crazy about texting. of course many do, but talking is so easy and if you are out at night and need to call your friends many of our phone plans have unlimited night and weekend minutes anyway.

so anyway that's how americans live like that.

[James @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

This isn't the actual phone that Motorola and Apple are working on together. Its simply an E398 equipped with the new firmware for the demonstration. And for all you people saying it doesn't have an iPod-style navigation system, it does. It's pretty similar to the iPod photo.

"But a Motorola representative clarified on Friday that the phone shown during the keynote was not the actual iTunes phone that is slated for release this year. Instead, it was a Motorola E398 equipped with the iTunes functionality for the demonstration."

This is from an article here: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1749056,00.asp

[Christopher Mahon @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

I hope that they've done iTunes in Java or something that can be run on other Phones. I'm just...urgh, the idea of using a Motorola interface....urgh.

[vc @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

in the philippines, in one of 3 major networks (sun cellular) gives its subscribers a chance to call and text 24/7 unlimited for only PHP100.00 (USD2.00++) for 10 days or PHP250.00 (USD4.00++) for 30 days..forever!!!

[ramen @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

i have this phone. mp3 player, bluetooth, speakerphone...i love it. hope there's a firmware upgrade to upgrade the E398 to the "iPhone" OS

[Chris C. @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

The phone is available in Europe on T-Mobile at the moment and on Some Plans for Free even, which kills me cuz I just paid $200 for it. But you can get it unlocked from many sites. My husband has it ans I liked it so much that I got one too.....

Someone mentioned a 1 gig trans flash eatlier...If I remember correctly the Motorola E 1000 or the A 1000 or the A680 goes up to 1 gig. Cant find the review I read on the phone right now, but It is one of those models.

[Donny @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

The Motorola E398 is NOT compatible with ISync as far as I can tell. If anyone has had ny luck with syncing them please advise!!! thanks

[Nate @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Sweet!

[Joel @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/02/14/motorola/index.php

I don't know which one is more accurate, but the page at the address above states that the phone will only play WMA/MP3 and not be compatible with iTunes purchased music. I hope that's a mistake seeing as that would make iTunes compatibility essentially pointless.

[grace @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

GOOD DAY,
i am interested in item, and immediate purchase of this unit and will be making payment right away,i shall also be ready to pay you through moneygram union auction payments, .i will like to ask if i would be able to ship as soon as payment is confirmed and approved by moneygram union auction payments,this is due to the fact that its demand is high in my store and so i will want to complete the transaction in a very timely manner.if you can do this, email me with your name, contact address and your phone number so that i can proceed with payment right away.let me quickly say that i will prefer shipping with dhl express or EMS as i will be sending this unit to africa.you will mail me with your name contact addrees and phone number if you are ready so i make payment immediatly
thanks