Motorola ROKR E1

Status: 🟡 Minor software issues, otherwise functional

The Motorola ROKR E1 made its debut in 2005 with a lot of fanfare, but there was a problem—it was already outdated. The hardware was basically a clone of the Motorola E398 from 2004, so while the world of mobile tech was advancing, the ROKR E1 felt like a relic right out of the box. The big selling point, though, was its ability to sync music and podcasts with Apple iTunes, making it the first phone ever to feature iTunes integration, just like an iPod. On paper, this sounded like a game-changer, but things didn’t go as planned.

The ROKR E1 was unveiled by none other than Steve Jobs at an Apple event, but the reveal was, honestly, underwhelming. During the demo, Jobs received a call, and when he tried to resume music playback, the phone lagged in front of a live audience. It was a cringeworthy moment for a device that was supposed to bridge the gap between a phone and an iPod. The capacity was another letdown—it could only store 100 songs, while the cheapest iPod Nano introduced at the same event held up to 500. For people who already owned an iPod, the ROKR E1 didn’t make sense.

Looking back, it seems like Apple had bigger plans. Steve Jobs wasn’t all-in on the ROKR; he was just testing the waters for Apple’s entry into the mobile market. This collaboration with Motorola was more of a stepping stone that paved the way for the iPhone. Meanwhile, Motorola expected the partnership to last longer, and you can see the sign of that in the next model, the ROKR E2, which even had a green iTunes button. But by then, Apple was already on a different path, and the relationship faded quickly.

Motorola, however, went all out with marketing. They spent a ridiculous amount of money on what was probably the most expensive TV ad ever. It featured Iggy Pop, Madonna, Black Eyed Peas, and a bunch of other celebrities crammed into a phone booth, all to promote the ROKR. The ad was flashy and fun, but it couldn’t cover up the phone’s limitations. For me personally, the biggest frustration was having to use iTunes. Back then, we were used to transferring music by simply dragging and dropping files through USB Mass Storage, and being forced to sync through iTunes felt like a step backward.

Thankfully, the ROKR E1 had a thriving modding community that breathed new life into the device. The iTunes app on the phone was a Java 2 ME application, and the modders decompiled it, allowing us to bypass the desktop iTunes altogether and update our music library directly from the phone. But the modding didn’t stop there. We could program custom light patterns for incoming calls, boost the stereo speakers to turn the phone into a mini-boombox, and install new themes, games, and apps. The E398/ROKR E1 was a modder’s paradise, and since it had no cryptographically locked bootloader, it was pretty easy to recover from a bricked device—something I had to do more than once by shorting pins on the USB port while connecting the battery.

Despite all its flaws, I sometimes miss owning the ROKR E1. It was a quirky, legendary device that gave us the freedom to tweak and customize it in ways modern phones rarely allow. It may have been underwhelming when it launched, but it was definitely a product of its time, and for those of us who got into the modding scene, it was unforgettable.