This is probably taken a little bit out of context. But the point is there: He's saying he doesn't think people will pay $3 for a full length, 4 minute music file. I think he's wrong. Why? People are currently paying $3-4 for a 15 to 30 second music clip they can assign to as ringer on their handset. They do this even though there are applications out there that allow you to use MMS (often called picture messaging) to send a ringer to your handset for only a quarter.

“I’m not convinced that it will be successful,” he said, observing: “The network providers will charge a lot to download music to a mobile - maybe $3.”

Why do people do this? Why would anyone spend four bucks for 30 seconds of audio? The answer is really rather simple.

To put it simply: convenience. People play around with their phones in line at the grocery store, waiting for a bus, on the bus, waiting at McDonald's, hangin' with their pals at the mall, etc. It's also easy. The money appears on your cell phone bill where it makes maybe a 10% difference if you only buy one a month. You can do the entire transaction on your phone, you don't need cash in your pocket, you don't need a computer around, or anything else. You just whip out your phone and do it.

Now, there is a counter point. And that is simply that the money is already being spent on ringers so there isn't anything left to spend on full audio. Another problem is that many new cell phones come with memory cards where people can load up their current tunes to play. This particular issue goes away if the price becomes a buck or less -- provided you can get rights to that song on your computer.

Now why hasn't Apple already done that with iTunes? They have iTunes for a certain cell phone called the Motorola ROKR (ever hear of that?). The strange thing, though, when I look at the UI is that it looks a whole lot more like the iPod software than the iTunes software. In fact, you can't even purchase music with iTunes for the phone! So what makes it iTunes? Nothing other than Apple wanting to confuse the software names (oh, and so people don't get the idea it's an iPod and think they only need a ROKR and not an iPod -- silly people, you will always need an iPod and a phone that has iPod software that's called iTunes).

iTunes -- on the desktop -- has this particularly important feature of being able to purchase and download content (music, audiobooks, podcasts). If this is iTunes on the phone, how come we can't do that? Purchasing music for the standard prices would be nice. It would be all DRM'd up, like normal, of course. But then it would also allow for the downloading of podcasts and other such things that people often want to listen to while on the run rather than when they're working and need some techno to increase their typing rate. Imagine being able to access your podcast subscriptions from the privacy of your handset. You could do things like get the latest 5 minute NPR news clip -- or catch up on the Daily Source Code. When you're back at your desk and your iTunes Mobile and iTunes Desktop sync up, just like a sync up between an iPod and iTunes Desktop all of your activity, plays, bookmarks, etc will sync up.

And hey, why not sync up your iPod against your iTunes Mobile enabled handset? You purchase songs via iTunes Mobile in a very secure way (debatably more secure than the desktop -- but definitely more private; no one is sniffing your packets at work). Sure, the iPod can store more -- but that's the point. You can offload stuff onto it. This is perfect for kids. Give them a prepaid iTunes Mobile enabled handset with a specific amount of money each month (similar to the quote you can do on iTunes Desktop) and an iPod (probably a full one -- mobile handset storage will surpose Nano's before too long) and all of a sudden they don't need to get in the way of your WoW playing desktop.

And since they have their IM on their cell phone, the desktop login for them can be iTunes and IM free so when it comes to homework time you just grab their iTunes Mobile phone and their iPod and throw them in front of the computer to get their work done.

And that's only one possible use for mobile audio downloads. There are plenty of others. Some I may even keep to myself. ;)

Macworld UK - Apple Expo: Jobs on mobile music and living room PCs

Posted by Shane on September 28, 2005 9:04 AM | Permalink