A Glimmer for the Rokr

Apple (AAPL Quote), Motorola (MOT Quote) and Cingular unveiled the Rokr, the hotly anticipated iPod/cell-phone combination that is expected to be the forerunner of a new generation of music phones.

As expected, a San Francisco gathering saw Apple chief Steve Jobs introduce the Rokr, a Motorola phone that will hold about 100 songs, similar to Apple's iPod Shuffle. And as with the Shuffle, songs must be loaded from a PC -- scotching telcos' hopes of reaping revenue from wireless downloads.

The Rokr, which is silver with a color screen, is expected to be available Thursday for $250 with a two-year service contract at Cingular stores nationwide. Cingular, the nation's leading cell-phone service provider, is a joint venture of SBC (SBC Quote) and BellSouth (BLS Quote).

A Cingular representative said the company isn't "exactly sitting on thousands of them, but hopefully we have enough to hit all the early adopters." ...