Buying music from your mobile phone might be just a few weeks away. January 2005 brings the next big Macworld Expo. That's where Apple is rumored, as always, to have a few surprises up the sleeve of SJ's black t-shirt.

According to The Register, both Motorola and Apple are scheduled to make major announcements early in January. The reason this is more than serendipity has to do with an Apple press release that came out last spring where the company announced that they were working with Moto on a phone project. The rumors began flying, but as of yet there's no concrete indication as to what the project will produce.

Amid all the rumors, I can't help but think that I'd like to see Apple build in a few other features into the iPod before assisting a company like Motorola build a cell phone that will connect to the ITMS. I'd like my iPod to be bluetooth-enabled at the least, and 802.11-enabled ideally. I need to sync my iPod without wires and do it automatically. An iPhone might or might not have that functionality; and my guess is that it won't ship with a 40gb hardrive either.

As it stands now, I've tried to use my SE K700i (which is still at SE's repair facility well past the date I was promised to have it back in my hands) as a mp3 player. It just isn't convenient. Transferring music to the phone over Bluetooth takes way too long. The last file I sent was Adam Curry's Daily Source Code which was about 10mb and I was able to take a shower during the time it took to reach the phone. Despite the fact that I can transfer music to the K700i, I'm just using the built-in FM tuner these days. Besides, the phone's only got 41mb of available memory. Apple and Moto will have to do something about both of these hurdles for the concept to be widely adopted, in my opinion.

Part of me would much rather Apple build a phone into my 12-inch Powerbook. Embed an LCD and dial pad into the outside lid of the PB and I could use my Bluetooth headset to both answer and make calls whether or not my PB was accessible, just so long as it was within range of my headset. Add the ability for me to access my ITunes library from the pad/headset and I've got a fast and huge mobile solution.

Admittedly there are a few problems with my idea, but I for one am tiring of big ideas that under-deliver. And do I really need yet another device to lug around? An iPhone that doesn't solve some of the larger issues like transfer speed and storage capacity might be just that: another anemic device.

Regardless of the outcome of this partnership, I'll be very excited to see what happens next month. I'll also buy one.

Oh yeah, along with an iPhone, or its announcement (Apple's got to be first with music on mobile phones), I hope Apple spices up the desktop a little while their at it.

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Don't forget How to Buy a Mac.