Apple said to be working with Softbank on "co-branded" handset
by Evan Blass 
posted May 12th 2006 at 5:16PM
Japanese news agency Nikkei is reporting that Apple and new Vodafone Japan owner Softbank are working together to develop cellphones capable of downloading and playing music from the iTunes store. Details are, of course, very slim at this point, as we don't even know whether to characterize this as a "true" iPhone, or simply a ROKR-like model featuring only software from the iPod manufacturer powering a non-Apple handset. However, Nikkei is quoting sources that say the phone, which may be released as early as this year (and which is definitely NOT pictured alongside this post), is expected to sport both Softbank and Apple branding, which may indicate that Cupertino will have a hand in developing the hardware as well. Whatever they're working on, we wanna know about it, and we won't rest until we have a ton of specs and pics for you.
Filed under: Handsets, Multimedia, Vodafone
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Eric @ May 13th 2006 4:26PM
I think this phone will be a great addition to the apple family, I just hope they are not going overboard branding more products with the "apple" logo than consumers can handle.
I recently wrote about the marketing angle on my blog if you want to check it out: www.marketing.fm
Peter Kirn @ May 14th 2006 1:35PM
All rumors, of course . . . but I hope they're not true. (And I'm inclined to believe they ARE, unfortunately, because my own grapevine is overwhelmed.)
What I'd rather have from Apple instead of another place to play songs for their music store: how about synchronization from Address Book, iCal, and .Mac mail that actually works right?