Before the iPhone, There Was the iTunes Phone

Apple's involvement with phones didn't begin with the original iPhone. Here's a look at the iTunes-branded phone that came before it.

For those of us grown enough to remember large chunks of our lives before the iPhone existed, it feels like such a transformative product took over society just yesterday. What's lesser known to the masses, however, is the Apple phone that came before the iPhone.

Believe it or not, Apple and Motorola teamed up in 2005—two years before the launch of the original iPhone—to build and release an iTunes Phone. Meet the Motorola ROKR.

At the Apple Music Event in September 2005, Steve Jobs took time on stage to announce the release of an official iTunes Phone. It turns out that phone was really a Motorola-built device, the Motorola ROKR, but Apple worked to develop the first ever mobile iTunes client as its flagship feature.

It seems like Apple was largely uninvolved with the hardware design, which was clearly inspired by Motorola's other candy bar phone designs at the time. The ROKR wasn't a smartphone, didn't even have a keyboard, and was pretty mediocre by just about every other measure.

It did have the ability to sync with iTunes on your computer and add up to 100 songs from your library, thanks to its 512MB storage. During the keynote, Apple compared the phone to an iPod Shuffle, which supported up to 120 songs but lacked a display and any functionality of a phone.

The ROKR launched on Cingular for $249 with a two-year service contract. Sales were so poor that just two months after its release, RCR Wireless News reported the carrier slashed the price by $100. Apple and Motorola even collaborated on a second-generation version, but you can imagine that one never caught on either.

Just as odd as the iTunes Phone itself was the timing of it. During the very same keynote, Apple also unveiled the original iPod nano. You might be wondering what to do with your old iPod now, but at the time, it was a total breakthrough for Apple. It killed off the iPod mini the company announced a year prior in favor of something even tinier with a color display.

The iPod nano started at $199 to hold 500 songs, and it was a vastly superior product to the iTunes Phone in nearly every way. Nowadays, you may think it's a no-brainer to just listen to music on your smartphone, but back in 2005, people were accustomed to having separate devices for music and calls.

It shouldn't be a surprise that the iPod nano took the world by storm and stole quite a bit of the iTunes Phone's thunder. If you already had a cell phone you liked, upgrading to the Motorola ROKR didn't make sense just to hold 100 songs in your pocket when you can get a miniature iPod to hold at least 500.

The Motorola ROKR was a very weird move for Apple. It's not like the company to collaborate externally on a product that would carry one of its biggest brand names: iTunes. Plus, considering the original iPhone made its world-changing debut two years later in 2007, Apple was definitely already well underway with developing something clearly superior to the iTunes Phone.

Could it be possible that Apple had a secret master plan behind collaborating with Motorola? Since Apple never released a phone of its own prior to the iPhone, some have suggested that the iTunes Phone was a brilliant way to test the waters.

It would be able to gather data on whether people were interested in such a device, how they were using it, what they liked and didn't like about the experience of iTunes on a cell phone, and how to best market a full-fledged Apple phone later on. This is just pure speculation, but it's certainly an interesting theory.

You won't find anyone walking around with a Motorola ROKR in their pocket anymore. The original iPhone was always the clear goal for Apple, but this short-lived iTunes Phone is a fascinating moment to reflect on in Apple's history. Although Steve Jobs famously announced in 2007 that the iPhone would have an iPod built in, credit goes to the ROKR for doing it first.

George has been writing online about technology for 14 years spanning everything from how-tos to reviews and opinion pieces. He got his start as a teenager blogging about iPhone rumors for his high school friends and sure enough, a full-time career was born shortly thereafter. When he's not engrossed in his collection of Apple products, you can probably find him either fixing someone else's or reading about which new one to buy.