Multifunctional or dysfunctional?

The topic of convergence in the mobile market was highlighted again this week with the launch of the long-awaited iPod phone, aka the Motorola ROKR E1.

Apple is touting the device as the ultimate in convergence of mobile communications and music, but phones that can play music are hardly new, so why should the inclusion of an iTunes interface make any real difference?

After all, most leading makers of mobile phone handsets have either released or announced their intention to release music phones that combine MP3 playback capabilities with mobile telephony.

The ROKR E1`s ability to switch from listening to music to talking on the phone and back again with the push of a dedicated music key may be attractive, but just how compelling it will be, remains to be seen.

Critics have described the iPod phone as folly, but perhaps it is simply an indication that Apple is getting real about its market.

Warwick Ashford, portals managing editor

Motorola claims to be driven by consumer needs, but is the iPod phone really a product developed to satisfy real consumer needs, or is it merely aimed at creating an artificial demand to help bolster flagging iPod revenues?

The results of a recent survey conducted by the Solutions Research Group in the US, seems to suggest there is a demand for devices like the newly-launched iPod phone.

The Industrial Economics and Knowledge Centre forecasts the market for mobile phones with built-in MP3 players will reach 350 million units worldwide by 2008.

The Solutions Research Group survey found that despite an average of 375 songs per digital music player, 50% hold fewer than 100 songs, as does the new iPod phone, indicating a potentially large market for limited capacity phone and music player hybrids.

The fact that Apple launched a new generation iPod, the iPod Nano, on the same day as the iPod phone, probably means Apple does not believe the era of the pure iPod is over. It is obviously still catering for the 25% of users who have between 100 and 500 songs stored on their music players and the 25% who have more than 500.

The survey found that pure iPod owners typically have bigger music libraries than owners of other brands of music players, with collections averaging around 504 songs compared with the non-iPod average of 246 songs.

This points to an important fact. Not all consumer needs are the same. Therefore it is unlikely that all consumers will ever be satisfied with a single, multifunctional portable device that is the logical outcome of convergence taken to its extreme.

A single device that combines phone, music, colour, photo, video, PDA, PIM, Internet, gaming and messaging functionality, would be the electronic equivalent of the Swiss Army knife.

I must confess, the idea of the single, multifunctional device is alluring, but so was the idea of a Swiss Army knife until I actually owned one. I soon found out that although it was a multifunctional tool, none of the functions were easy to use or worked particularly well. It certainly was not a very useful knife.

I suspect the same is true when the concept of a multifunctional electronic device is taken too far. Could it be that multifunctional ultimately means dysfunctional?

It certainly appeared that way when I recently tested a voice-enabled PDA with photo, video, PIM, Internet, messaging and GPS functionality. The idea of owning such a device was undeniably alluring, but in practice I battled to make phone calls and was happy to return to my faithful no-frills mobile phone.

That said, I must concede that I did buy a Swiss Army knife when I was much younger and the iPod phone is definitely aimed at the youth market, with 21% of young Americans owning digital music players in contrast with 12% in the 30 to 50 age group and only 4% in the 50-plus age group.

Another argument against the ultimate converged device is that losing it would mean losing a whole lot of functionality at the same time. When I lost my Swiss Army knife for example, not only was I down a knife, but also a pair of scissors, a file, a pair of tweezers, a saw, a magnifying glass, a screwdriver, a cork screw and toothpick!

Critics have described the iPod phone as folly, but perhaps it is simply an indication that Apple is getting real about its market. Although there is still a demand for high-capacity pure iPods, there is also a market for phones with music players. With an estimated 53% share of the entire digital music player market, Apple probably knows what it`s doing.