Over at Arstechnica, Charles Jade is asking if "the cell phone the new black (iPod)?"
The answer is probably - not yet.
As noted, there is no phone (or service - both for the provision of music and bandwidth) as yet designed to allow the downloading of music over the air - and as we have previously argued, this is probably the test which has to be passed before MP3 players become fully converged with cellphones.
We would like, however, to point out one new development which might accelerate this process - not because it will serve to untangle the legal mess which has to be navigated for the service to occur, or that it is a new phone which is the cellphone equivalent of the Grail, but because is it possibly representative of an evolutionary change of mindsets.
This is the Nokia Music Headset HS-20 (pictured above). Incorporating a remote control with a microphone and a 3.5mm adaptor (and shipping with headphones which look like they are in-ear), it is stated to be compatible with the N-Series, E-Series, and the L'Amour Collection.
On a superficial level, this new headset will make it trivial to use better headphones to listen to music on-phone. However, we hope that it also means that Nokia has recognized that music quality matters - a necessary step towards full music/mobile convergence. Whether or not this is true depends largely upon the sort of sound capable of being reproduced by the handsets in question. Initial indications are good and we will find that out in due course.
It's such a pity that this headset is not planned to be included with phones like the N80 instead of the microphone-less AD-15 - but we suppose that there is a reason that white ipod earbuds are ubiquitous.
