In my railing against the Apple hype machine on Friday, I focused so much on the video iPod that I neglected to mention the real loser of Apple's recent products, the Motorola ROKR phone. Engadget was kind enough to remind me and put some facts behind rumors that the ROKR hasn't done so well. (Still, 83,000 units a week isn't all that bad).

The ROKR appears to be a decent phone coupled to a not very good music player. It deserves to be a loser because it just doesn't deliver on the promise implied when you think of an iPod and a phone being brought together. Instead, the ROKR seems to combine everything Apple knows about handsets with everything Motorola knows about MP3 players.