New Devices Taking Aim at Apple's Primacy

Oct 03, 07:55 AM

Current Headlines: By Eric Benderoff, Chicago Tribune

Oct. 3--Will it be Verizon's iPhone clone that takes some of the shine off Apple Inc.'s sales momentum? Or might it be a new line of Zune MP3 players that bites into iPod's market share?

In what is shaping up to be a hotly contested battle for consumers' gadget dollars this holiday season, Verizon Wireless and Microsoft Corp. will announce new products Wednesday that clearly borrow from Apple's recent innovations.

"The Zune products are strong," said technology analyst Rob Enderle. "This will help make it an interesting quarter for Apple. They have a lot of people really mad at them. That could cost them some market share."

The Apple backlash stems from September's unexpected $200 price cut for the iPhone two months after its release.

"Even if the price reduction didn't happen to you, it happened to someone you know," Enderle said, adding that "a lot of good alternatives are starting to emerge."

Two touch-screen phones, the Venus and the Voyager, made by LG Electronics, will be sold exclusively through Verizon. The Voyager, in particular, looks very much like an iPhone, from the icons on the screen to the 8 gigabytes of media storage it can hold for music or video. (That storage is not built in; it comes from a memory card.)

There are key differences. The Voyager can shoot video, access Verizon's television service, which means it runs on the carrier's high-speed network, and, in a nod to people who don't like touch controls for typing out a message, flips open to reveal a large QWERTY keyboard.

Pricing for the Voyager was not announced, but Verizon spokesman David Clevenger said it is expected to cost less than the iPhone.

Verizon is announcing the Voyager well before it is expected to be in stores next month, a nod to how quickly the phone landscape has changed since the iPhone's launch this summer. Previously, Verizon would announce a phone and it would be available for sale within a week, at least online.

"The market has gotten highly competitive," Clevenger said. "A lot of people are looking at handsets right now and we want people to know what we will have for the holidays."

The Venus, Verizon's other touch-screen phone, is a slider targeted to people who want a music phone. But the controls are less ambitious than on the Voyager, only operating on the lower half of the phone's screen, not across its entire surface. Pricing has not been determined, but it also will be in stores in November.

Microsoft, too, is announcing changes to its Zune line.

The operating software has been redesigned, two new models are offered, and the music and video player will be able to sync wirelessly with a user's computer. That means, as people add content to their computer, they don't need to plug the Zune in to load the content.

The new Zunes come in multiple colors, including red and green, and storage sizes ranging from 4 gb to 80 gb, with prices from $150 to $250. They will be in stores in mid-November.

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ebenderoff@tribune.com

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