Monday October 10, 2005

Hello? Moto?!?

Last week, as I read Paul Boutin’s eulogy for the Motorola ROKR—“in the gadget-lust department, the ROKR is more soccer mom than supermodel”—I was reminded that Moto had a truly sexy phone in the pipeline last year, and they killed it.

Remember the MPx? I do. I wrote an “Object of Desire” page on it for GQ, which seemed right at the time. It was easily the most-anticipated phone of 2004. Engadget called the dual-hinged PDA number—which could be opened both lengthwise (as a clamshell phone) and horizontally (sort of like a Sidekick)—“lust-inducing.” Gizmodo declared it “so hot that it’s getting otherwise non-techy geeks excited.” An advance version appeared on eBay and caused a stir. I myself got my hands on a prototype for several weeks, thanks to the GQ assignment.

Then, this April, Motorola killed it.

The RAZR has been pretty well received—and the company can perhaps redeem itself if it can merge that platform with Blackberry-like technology—but wouldn’t it have made more sense to satisfy the demand for the MPx’s innovative design, rather than flailing around in the non-demand for the gruesome ROKR? Ah, hindsight.