Gadgetory

the world of mobile technology is one of the fiercest competitive markets ever in the quest to stand out from the pack some companies make bold moves and succeed brilliantly others are more meek and fade into the unexceptional background still others fill the space between innovating once and then endlessly iterating over and over again then there are those that just screw it all up thanks to choices that are either too bold too meek or just plain old absolutely insane these are the products that fall flat on their face they're not to be mocked but the lessons they teach should certainly be remembered one in 10 smartphones sold globally last quarter was an iPhone that device introduced in 2007 has proven one of the most impactful devices to hit the mobile landscape ever but most people don't remember that there was an Apple sanctioned mobile phone before the iPhone and had it proven successful today's smartphone landscape would look very different indeed I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow this is the Moto ROKR e1 and this is episode 4 of pocket now's worst gadgets ever the Moto ROKR e1 debuted in the fall of 2005 a world where feature phones still reigned supreme and smartphones were devices for geeks and people who worked too hard even in that low expectations environment though the e1 almost immediately failed to impress the phone didn't even feature a new design it was actually just a rebranded Motorola e3 98 which at that point was over a year old and about as sexy and design as its model name suggests in a world where the typical high-end cellular phone camera was already pushing 2 megapixels the rockers VGA shooter was pretty horrible as was its tiny 1.9 inch display and considering Motorola was the company behind the widely acclaimed razor launched less than a year prior the e ones chintzy plastic build quality was nothing short of embarrassing this is the last phone you'd have expected a company like Apple to go anywhere near so why was the Moto ROKR e1 unveiled by Steve Jobs himself at a September 2005 Apple event because the e1 was the first-ever iTunes phone that's right this cheap plastic bar of soap is the great-great-great great-great granddaddy of the modern iPhone but that doesn't mean that Apple was necessarily excited about the product and judging from the audience reaction at the unveiling neither was the technology press warning what you're about to see is severely underwhelming and given Steve Jobs tone it's pretty clear that he knows it is made by Motorola we have designed the iTunes client and worked with them to integrate it into the phone it's called a motorola rokr ROK r and it's pretty cool phone where yeah I'll talk to you later thanks bye so I go there and I just resume my music right back to where it was well I was supposed to resume my music right back to where it was I hit the wrong button but you can resume your music right back to where it was if you hit the right one the e1 launched exclusively on singular in the United States and it was immediately clear that it wasn't what people had been waiting for from Apple besides its shoddy build quality and hopelessly outdated feature set the iTunes client itself was crippled sure there was a dedicated itunes button to jump right into the media player and the interface looked like that of an iPod and there were even hints of later greatness like the phone's ability to pause and auto resume playback after a phone call but the iTunes app was fundamentally flawed hobbled right out the gate by a crippling limitation despite the phone's ability to support up to a gigabyte of additional memory via microSD you could only store a maximum of 100 songs on the phone this seemingly arbitrary limitation had the effect of making the e1 much less appealing than dedicated mp3 players like the just released iPod Nano which many speculate was the entire point in fact as the story goes then Motorola CEO ed Zander accused Apple of purposely undercutting the rockery one by announcing it the same day as the iPod Nano and then failing to fully support it thereafter but whether these accusations carry any water is irrelevant at $249 on contract the rebadged feature phone with sluggish software USB 1.0 and a 2.5 millimeter headphone jack was never going to set the world on fire no matter how many celebrities showed up in its commercials or how intriguing its disco club side lighting may have appeared to some buyers the e1 delivered a user experience so bad that one review written at the time said even if I bought one I would still use an iPod to play music because it simply gives a superior music playing experience with the exception of one more iTunes enabled device the Motorola sliver the Apple motorola relationship quickly evaporated and just over a year later Apple went on to change the face of the mobile landscape forever by going it alone meanwhile Motorola while not without a handful of significant hits entered a protracted period of decline culminating in its purchase by Google six years later what lessons can we learn from this well plenty including the old caution not to rest on one's laurels in the case of Motorola but probably the most important takeaway here is one Apple embraced wholeheartedly following this incident too much compromise can be a very bad thing Apple's subsequent unwillingness to budge on fundamental aspects of its next endeavor meant that initially only one carrier again singular was willing to give Apple the kind of control it wanted an apple gained a reputation for zealously guarding that control but that inflexibility eventually gave us the first generation iPhone and with the possible exception of the flame wars in the Internet's comment sections the smartphone world has been a better place ever since it's a very good thing in retrospect that the Moto ROKR e1 failed as brilliantly as it did do you remember the ROKR e1 or it's iTunes packin sequel the Motorola sliver did you own either one if so drop us a line down in the comments or pay us a visit at the nostalgia section of the PocketNow forums tell us your story meanwhile you can check out other episodes of where Skagit sever here on youtube drop us a like if you enjoy the video and follow us on social media until next time this has been michael with PocketNow thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time