Analyst: Apple’s iPod phone set for production

American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu believes that Apple’s first cell phone will be introduced in the first half of 2007 and is urging investors to purchase shares of Apple before such an announcement is made. “With a history of revolutionizing the PC industry, the music industry, and the movie industry, we encourage investors to get aggressive in purchasing shares of Apple prior to the potential revolution of the handset industry,” Wu wrote in a research note. “Our research indicates that an Apple-designed smart phone has moved from concept to prototype and recently has progressed to near completion as a production unit,” Wu said. “We believe this smart phone has been in development for over 12 months and has overcome substantial challenges including design, interference, battery life, and other technical glitches. We believe that Steve Jobs is finally satisfied with the end product Apple engineers have produced in terms of quality and the right blend of cell phone and portable media player.”

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Well, you can bet that it's going to be attractive to people who have Macs since I'd almost guarantee that this new phone if/when it makes it to the distribution channels will likely be iSync compatible. It will likely be a better fit as a music phone than any of the permutations so far such as the first Moto "ROKR" which was about the most "ho-hum" music phone out there with only a 100 capacity song capacity.

It will also be interesting to see if cingular, VeriZon or T-Mobile gets it.

I hope that when/if it comes out it will be quad band.

It's likely not going to be competition for the Razr unless the form factor is somehow really "wow." It's not beyond a possibility since Apple is known for developing great designs and concepts. It's likely going to be a bar design though.

 

This new phone is not intended to compete with PDA's and smartphones or doesn't appear to be. Since it's only in concept phase it remains to be seen what it will do. Likely it will have some PIM functions (calendar, timers etc.) since most new phones even the entry level ones have some basic PIM functionality.