Riding the wave of popularity of their iPods, Apple launched a cell phone September 8, 02005, called the ROKR with Motorola that works like an iPod music player and comes with storage capabilities for 100 songs, stereo speakers, headphones, and a camera.

As we’ve tracked in the recent releases of our North American and European Youth Culture Consumer Research Studies 02005, an iPod is a key electronic young people most aspire to own. Adding the new feature of music to a cell phone however, may just turn the ROKR phone into the next generation of must-have technology.

This moves the market in the direction of eliminating the “computer” as it is seen today. With Apple’s music, camera, (and video enabled?) phones, they may just be turning the market in America more like the market that exists in Japan. In Japan, as we’ve seen in our Japan Youth Culture Consumer Research Study, one’s phone is one’s computer. With limited space for clunky computers, not to mention internet connections to apartments, mobile phones have always been the key accessory, communication tool, and mobile entertainment center among young people in Japan.

Now, with music enabled phones, Apple has obviously pushed America past the ringtone generation by taking a giant leap into the mobile generation.—Kathleen Gasperini