I’m sure I wasn’t the only person disappointed by the recent unveiling of the iTunes phone. There was plenty of speculation and expectation about just such a phone, but to me, this product hasn’t the Apple magic.
If you have an Apple device, which you hold in your hand, and plays music, usually it’s an iPod. But an iTunes phone misses the point in so many ways! First of all, it’s a phone, not an iPod. You can’t use songs as ring tones. You don’t have the neat scroll wheel to navigate your songs. I think the fact that it has so little storage is the least of its problems.
But how about this, Apple. Get iTunes out of the phone and back into the iPod. I want a phone that looks like an iPod! By that I mean I want something white and silver and remarkably simple, with controls just like the iPod. You can’t get that elegance and simplicity from a cell phone, you’ve got to use the iPod.
But where would you put the numbers? How about arranging them in a circle, around the touch-sensitive wheel? When the phone rings, the numbers light up, just like my iPod’s controls do. You tap the numbers around the circle with your thumb. Then you hit the center button to place the call. It’s iPod simple! Once you’ve finished, the numbers dim and it’s back to a plain old iPod again. It might be hard to see the numbers in broad daylight, but you’d see where they’d been etched, and anyway people would remember them after a while.
How about that. An insanely great cell phone. Will the Apple employees in the audience please pass that along?
