Is PortalPlayer Showing Apple's Hand?

Another hint of an upcoming wireless iPod was the length of time that PortalPlayer has been working on developing a wireless solution. PortalPlayer's "largest customers" start working with the company on new products 12 to 18 months before their release, Johnson said. Although PortalPlayer announced its deal with CSR earlier this week, the companies have been working together since last year, Johnson said.

Another new partnership for PortalPlayer could also have implications for Apple, though probably further down the road. The chipmaker announced a separate deal with Icera, a wireless modem company, to work on technology that would allow digital media players to connect to high-speed cellular networks. The technology could eventually pave the way for Apple's long rumored iPhone, a device that ostensibly would be a phone with iPod-like capabilities.

As part of a deal with Apple, Motorola has released several phones that can play songs downloaded from Apple's iTunes music store, but the models have been criticized for only storing a small amount of music and for lacking the iPod's ease of use.

At the conference, Johnson suggested that products resulting from the company's partnership with CSR were likely to come to market sooner than those incorporating the cell-phone technology.