Why the ROKR is important - Hint, it's not the phone itself

Michael Gartenberg | September 07, 2005, 07:45 PM

There’s been a lot talk today about what the ROKR means and it seems like a lot of folks are somewhat disappointed. Partly, that’s due to the fact some folks want products to come to market so badly, they’re disappointed when they’re not, like a video iPod. Others (including myself) felt that the phone’s form was a little lackluster in the fact that in the year since Motorola and Apple first started talking about this device, Motorola has shown (and in some cases shipped) really cool looking stuff like the RAZR, PEBL, SLVR and Q (more than one person referred to the Nano as the iPod RAZR). But a specific product isn’t really the key takeaway today.

The importance of today’s ROKR announcement isn’t really this particular phone, as this is likely just the first in what could be a series of devices. Rather it is the first time we have Apple’s iTunes (and FairPlay DRM) on a non-Apple device and Apple’s integration of this technology on a cell phone. Clearly the computer is still very much a part of the equation for Apple and the cell phone (as we have said in the past) isn’t meant to compete with the iPod but rather complement it. As I said back in December, if Apple thought that cell phones were iPod killers, would they have licensed their stuff to Motorola?

Apple has shown that they can partner with cell phone vendors as well as carriers and that has implications for the future.