We've seen this trend happening in the fashion industry before with the launch of mobile phone designed for luxury items like LG KE850 Prada, LG VX8500 Chocolate and Armani cellphone.

Now, the same trend might be happening in the athletic shoes category with the partnership of Samsung and Adidas for the new music mobile phone miCoach.

Competing directly against the Nike/iPod sports kit to enable individuals to play music and monitor their workouts, miCoach is a slim slider phone equipped with heart rate monitor, 2-inch LCD screen, a shoe sensor and an online journal to record all the workout progress.

The main difference - it's a mobile phone so you can simply stop the music playing and answer calls right away. However, it's more expensive than Nike/iPod system i.e. €400 ($612) vs. $328. miCoach is currently available in Germany and will be available in Europe by the end of this month.

Will this trigger other athletic shoes manufacturer like Reebok, Puma and Converse to follow suit? What do you think?

Via Mobilecrunch