The New York Times reports that the partnership between Motorola and Apple is finally bearing fruit:

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 29 - Apple Computer and Motorola plan to unveil a long-awaited mobile phone and music player next week that will incorporate Apple’s iTunes software, a telecommunications industry analyst who has been briefed on the announcement said on Monday.

The development marks a melding of two of the digital era’s most popular devices, the cellphone and the iPod, which has become largely synonymous with the concept of downloading songs from the Internet or transferring them from compact discs.

This will be an interesting experiment in convergence: will people buying iPods decide instead to buy a cellphone with iPod-like features and/or will cellphone users want a cellphone with iPod features? BBB experts tend to think that such a device will be a failure. The iPod sells well because of its inimitable design that focuses solely on music playback. Cellphones are inherently complicated and unsavory. Combining these two just results in yet another franken-phone that no one likes.

Jack of all trades, master of none. Now if only motorola could make decent cellphones before trying to cram an iPod into one of them.