SHOCKR: ROKR Not Selling Well

from the who-needs-vowels dept

This is sort of anti-climactic, and not surprising at all, but an analyst report says Motorola’s iTunes phone isn’t selling well. While other Motorola phones are seeing good sales, the firm says people are disappointed in the product — again, not a surprise. One dealer, who says the ROKR doesn’t have “the look”, says he’s sold one in four weeks, compared to 25 of Motorola’s popular RAZR handset. Again, the point is simple: you make a crappy phone, nobody’s going to want to buy it.


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Comments on “SHOCKR: ROKR Not Selling Well”

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15 Comments
achacha says:

Motorola...

I have been disappointed in everything comercial that I have owned made by Motorola. 2 cell phones, both were abusmal and barely usable. Landline phone got as a gift had the worst UI I have ever seen, threw it away and bought a 10$ cheapo phone that actually worked. ComCast digital cable receiver, one of the worst UIs ever, nothing worked intuitively, everything was a hassle, manual sucked. And now the worst of the all, the Motorola DVR by ComCast, this product is so poorly designed that you can’t record a show at a given time, you have to ask it to record a show by name then when you specify first run it record everything and in the mornign you have 10 copies of same rerun that actually blocked you from recording anything else (I had both Tivo an dthe DVR from The Dish and both were light years ahead); there are so many example with this DVR it’s not funny, I can’t wait until I figure out how to get the dish working in the new place. I am not surprised this new Motorola product is abysmal, I read the reviews and critics were complaining about the UI and I knew it was the usual stuff. I think Motorola needs to look at the process they use for designing consumer devices and change it, a lot.

Aleks Y. (user link) says:

Well ofcourse!

The phone looks nothing like the Razr or the iPod. So the physical appeal is right out the window. What you have left is the music. Only 100 songs? Thats it? Is that even enough comparing to 60Gig iPods? To me 4Gig is enough, and thats 600 solid songs for me. But 100 is really nothing to be excited about. Next stop; Rokr that looks like razor and has 4Gig memory. Until then I got my black Razr on my hip and my Nano in my pocket. I just have to keep it separated – atleast for now.

DGK12 says:

No Subject Given

Palm suffers more than 10 years in the industry, surviving on the small niche they’ve carved out. First it was the people who wanted the next cool thing, now its those who actually know how to make it useful. PDAs are just not attractive to those who can’t find a use for them that would be worth the money.

MP3 player are also a trendy niche where people who use them buy them. Its a given that people who don’t use them don’t want them or own them. I won’t argue exceptions.

Cell Phones are 30 years into history and people who use them have them. If you want to make a cell phone that appeals to both cell-phone users and portable-music-players then you have to do both equally well without adding to the cost or taking away from the form-factor. Fail to do it and you will not have any customers, because its paying too much for a half-useful product.
And most importantly, since MP3 players are a niche product, failing to top current MP3 players will only make the product less attractive.

Fun and games, but the games still need to be fun. Did they even address battery concerns?

Robert says:

Hows it going

Ok well I work at the #1 connection center in wal-mart top sellers for cingular. I’m also a cingular customer myself and a big tech nerd. The Rokr is a huge disappointment it has no style limited menu selection. I would rather use my palm treo with removable flash memory then use something that holds on 100 songs. We have not sold a rokr even with all the advertisements that we post we even went to the extent of using wal-marts closed circuit TV’s and expressed the greatness of this item still no slaes since it’s release. It’s very unapealing to the consumer eye oh well looks like back to the drawing board for apple. I would suggest to them to create a flip phone the size of the nano that has a push button open and alot of anomatronic features.

fuzzmanmatt says:

Re: Hows it going

Well, I see your problem Robert, you work at Wal*Mart. I hope you buy soap, because you’re probably not skinny, and your cats make such a mess…

Sorry, I hate Wal*Mart. I hate Windows. I hate people who think that the ROKR could have actually come from Apple. It’s a Moto phone with iTunes on it. Saying it’s an Apple phone is like saying that the HP machines that were sold with iTunes pre-installed were from Apple. They weren’t, they were from HP, and the ROKR is from MOTO. If Apple were to intro a phone (hahaha! Yeah, that’s a good business to be a newcomer. HA!) it would be awesome, but getting a carrier to support it is not a very likely situation.

Jose Cortes says:

Re: Re: Hows it going

“”fuzzmanmatt “” Dude, you got a lot of hate going on, chill out.
The ROKR concept was not bad, but come on, a phone and an mp3 player in one? That’s not a very attractive market for most people. I own a Razr and an iPOD and I’m very happy with both. But I would not mix them into one product, I’t would to expensive to have a great phone and mp3 player in one. And as far a APPLE making a phone, well it most likely be a great looking and dependable product, the cost of that product would be the only thing to worry. 😉

spam says:

I'm going to buy one

I like the ROKR, actually. I don’t often make phone calls, but I have my iPod Shuffle. The ROKR means that I can carry around 1 device only, as I am required to have my cell phone on for my day job.

I think that the ROKR is a decent product. Also consider that it might not be selling well right now because in order to get new hardware, you have to agree to a lengthy service agreement. Lucky if customer care will give you $50 off, too. The newer phones are expensive. The reason that the RAZR is selling so well is because it’s becoming the new free phone they give you if you agree to a 2 year service agreement.
People aren’t replacing their phones as often either.

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