Music Business Explores Wireless Frontier

[Mike Temporale]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyid=2005-09-25T062955Z_01_MCC523186_RTRUKOC_0_US-MUSIC-MOBILE.xml' target='_blank'>http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyid=2005-09-25T062955Z_01_MCC523186_RTRUKOC_0_US-MUSIC-MOBILE.xml</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Wireless operators and record companies are starting to let mobile subscribers buy and download full songs over wireless networks directly to mobile phones capable of storing and playing music. As a big first step, Apple Computer and Motorola have partnered to create an iTunes-compatible mobile phone, dubbed the ROKR, capable of storing 100 songs and currently offered by Cingular. Will the result revolutionize both industries or just be another wireless hype machine met with tepid response and consumer apathy?"</i><br /><br />I vote for "Wireless hype machine" which I think is evident based on the hype surrounding the ROKR. It's a long cry from the first mobile phone to allow users to play music, but if you read any of the press releases, you would think this is new and un-charted territory. :roll: Besides, I don't see any advantage of buying my music wirelessly over my cellphone. Besides, what happens when after you've paid for a song and start downloading it only to loose signal and the song? I would much rather browse and download to my computer and then transfer to the mobile device/player of my choice.

[elijstar]

Mike, you got it dead right. Nobody wants to buy their songs primarily over the wireless net that exists at this moment.

That's what Steve Jobs knows, and you can be sure that the Rokr phone and the attending 100-song limit is just Apple testing the waters in a cellular market controlled with an Iron Fist by our friends the U.S. Cellular Carriers, namely Cingular, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile.

I wish Apple would mount an effort as comprehensive as Microsoft's to build an OS for mobile phones. Im sure they could stomp M$ with regard to usability et. al. And as an outspoken critic of M$, I am the first to say that they got Windows Mobile Smartphone pretty right. Not perfect,of course, but awesome and with only room to get better.

But, back to the topic, I see an ugly reality coming where the carriers try in vain to force users to download music and come to the hard conclusion that they'd be better off just leaving music alone and letting the desktops do the work. That is, UNTIL the network improves.

us$0.02
EJ*

"Wireless operators and record companies are starting to let mobile subscribers buy and download full songs over wireless networks directly to mobile phones capable of storing and playing music. As a big first step, Apple Computer and Motorola have partnered to create an iTunes-compatible mobile phone, dubbed the ROKR, capable of storing 100 songs and currently offered by Cingular. Will the result revolutionize both industries or just be another wireless hype machine met with tepid response and consumer apathy?"

I vote for "Wireless hype machine" which I think is evident based on the hype surrounding the ROKR. It's a long cry from the first mobile phone to allow users to play music, but if you read any of the press releases, you would think this is new and un-charted territory. :roll: Besides, I don't see any advantage of buying my music wirelessly over my cellphone. Besides, what happens when after you've paid for a song and start downloading it only to loose signal and the song? I would much rather browse and download to my computer and then transfer to the mobile device/player of my choice.