The quote came after an MIT presentation where Zander, get this, showed off a prototype device that can “receive and play music videos.”

Alright, what? This is news how? See, here's the thing: Back in March Verizon launched their VCast service. Guess what? It has videos on demand. And you know what else? They can provide videos for free (news clips or whatnot) or charge for them (things like Simple Life).

And you know what else you have been able to download for the last 9 months? Yeah, you got it. Music videos. Big whoop. One of the first things I did with my VX9800 is try to figure out if the VCast app was in faster (it is) so I was browsing all of the categories. I ran across a free Shakira video -- and downloaded it in less than a minute. It's about 4.5 minutes long and just over 4 megs. Things download fast on VCast (it requires you to have an EVDO signal).

So why is it a big deal that a protoype phone can do this when shipping phones have been able to do it on an American carrier for half a year? (Which phones? LG VX8000, LG VX8100, Audiovox CDM-8940, Motorola E815, Samsung A890, and most recently the LG VX9800 and I'm sure lots more to come this holiday season.)

So wait a minute. Apple's CEO Steve Jobs thinks people won't download full music files. However, people have been downloading full music videos for half a year. (I missed that one before, too.) And even paying $4 a pop for them -- this is the first time I've seen a free one. And Motorola's CEO Ed Zander thinks it's cool that a prototype phone can download music videos -- yet one of their own phones (the E815) has been doing that for how long again? Right. And then we have Engadget speculating that he may have been commenting about the Apple iPhone he alluded to? Yet Apple's CEO doesn't like mobile video -- or mobile music downloads.

Well, whatever. I've got my phone that can download video -- and music video. And it can play MP3s. So why can't it download MP3s? Well, maybe it can... maybe it can. Hell, it can probably stream them just fine if it wanted to.

Good grief...

Did Zander just confirm the Apple iPhone? - Engadget - www.engadget.com

Posted by Shane on October 1, 2005 8:30 PM | Permalink