Among the technological products that come to mind when Apple is mentioned, there are many signature devices such as iPod, iPad, iMac, Macbook and Watch. However, the first and foremost thing that comes to mind is undoubtedly the iPhone. But did you know that the iPhone isn’t actually Apple’s first entry into the mobile phone market?
Apple’s first push-button phone initiative was the result of collaboration with Motorola
Before smartphones, there were push-button phones. We say this because time passes so quickly. There are probably friends among us who do not know what a push-button phone is. One of the kings of the keypad phone market was undoubtedly Motorola.
In the early 2000s, Apple had a good market share with Macintosh computers and iPods. However, the visionary nature of the company is obvious, and they wanted to make a subsequent attempt: the mobile phone.
For this reason, they decided to cooperate with Motorola, one of the giants of the button phone market, which we have just mentioned. At the Apple Music Event in September 2005, Steve Jobs took the stage to present the iTunes Phone.
When Steve Jobs took the stage and introduced the phone to the world for the first time, it was understood that this was not a directly Apple-branded device. It was a device called Motorola ROKR with integrated iTunes software of Apple, which was very powerful at that time.
Apple was never involved in the hardware side of this device. The only thing the device could attach to Apple was its syncing feature with iTunes. Thanks to its 512 MB internal memory (which sounds like a joke nowadays), the music library could be filled with up to 100 songs.
Motorola ROKR was launched with a price tag of $ 249. This was 333 YTL with the exchange rate of that time (1,34 YTL). Again, the minimum wage at that time was 350.15 YTL net. Now that we have given this interim information, we can continue the story of iTunes Phone.
Sales of the device fell far short of expectations. In fact, sales were so bad that the price was reduced to $100. Apple and Motorola also released a second version of the device, but iTunes Phone did not survive.
The reason the iTunes Phone didn’t work was Apple itself because of the iPod Nano.
During the Music event, where the iTunes Phone was introduced, it also introduced the iPod Nano, one of the hit devices of that period. The iPod Nano was launched with a price tag of $199. It had a capacity of 500 songs and was available in pleasing color options.
Not to mention that the device also had a digital display. People therefore preferred the iPod Nano over the iTunes Phone as a device for listening to music that could pair with iTunes. This caused the iTunes Phone to stay in the background as it was introduced.
We all know what happened next, in 2007 Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone. Since then, it has been one of the two leaders of the smartphone market. Maybe Apple wanted to measure the heart rate for the iPhone with this iTunes Phone move, we don’t know. What are you thinking? Please do not forget to share your thoughts with us in the comments.
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