Taiwanese company BenQ claims that Apple has been in discussion with several Taiwanese telephone manufacturers in an attempt to design and produce an Apple iPod with cellular phone capabilities. BenQ says that they’re not the company that’ll be working with Apple on the design and manufacturing, but their parts manufcaturers have relayed the knowledge to them and that apparently it’s “common knowledge” among parts manufacturers in Taiwan.
I don’t know what to think, to be honest-I don’t think Apple needs to reinvent the wheel on this one-an iPod with telephone capabilities is one thing admittedly, but a whole new brand of cell phone with iPod functionality is another. Additionally, as even the article states, Apple’s biggest competitor in the cellular/music combo market would be Motorola, a company with whom Apple has a partnership to include iTunes functionality with the ROKR and now the SLVR. I’m skeptical that Apple would want to upend a partnership with the second largest cell phone manufacturer in the world.
That being said, if they took the different route and developed an iPod model, separate from its regular iPods, with telephone capabilities that targets a niche market, that could be completely different; but targeting niche markets isn’t always a good idea-depending on a select group of people to wholeheartedly adopt your product, especially when there isn’t a gaping market for it, could be a considerable risk. Only time will tell what Apple is really planning to do and whether or not this article is full of it, so until then, take this one with many many grains of salt.