If Apple really does have a line of Apple-branded phones ready to rock, they might just have something. If all they’ve got is the Motorola E790, we’ve got trouble right here in River City.
In all seriousness I hope there’s something else — there must be. The E790 should be one of those phones that just never makes it to market. The itunes-style interface part of it looks halfway decent but the rest of the phone is dogged by Moto’s standard (ugly) UI.
If UIQ 3 weren’t running so far behind I would think that UIQ3 + Apple customization would be a perfect combination. From what I’ve seen, UIQ 3’s one-handed configuration should rock and be very intuitive. Apple’s UI engineers could surely tweak and customize an iTunes interface on top of that for the music stuff.
If Apple were really smart they’d team up with HTC or another company that will churn out devices to spec for a device with that “in-house” polish.
I’ll be watching my aggregator closely on September 7th. Unless Apple has something really big up their sleeves, the Walkman phones are probably going to remain your best bet for some time to come. I’m really excited about the Nokia N91 too, but I worry that whatever PC interface it ships with is going to be too painful for most to use.
To be honest, an N91-like device with the iTunes store hookup would probably slaughter the music/cellphone crossover market.