Verizon, Sprint pass on iTunes phone

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 67
    Quote:

    Originally posted by nagromme

    "a quarter of the world's population already has a mobile phone. That's 1.4 billion people, compared with 10 million iPods sold to date."



    Yes, but more than 10 million have computers (not to mention CD players)... and that's all you need to enjoy iTMS. You don't need an iPod.



    So $2 to $3? No way.




    And how many of those 1.4 billion have phones that double as MP3 players? Oh, yeah, that's pretty much none right now.



    I think you are right. 2-3 dollars is a non-starter. It's not really comparable to ring-tones. You buy those so that OTHER people can hear them, and think, "Wow, he's so cool he's got Kaiser Cheifs on his phone." That is worth 2-3 dollars from really annoying and insecure people.



    But to build a music collection around? On a telephone with limited memory? When you can't move it to your computer or you stereo or burn a CD? I don't think so.



    I will buy this phone if a carrier pick it up, just to stick a finger in the eye of the greedy idiots running the carriers.
  • Reply 22 of 67
    louzerlouzer Posts: 1,054member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by AppleInsider

    "Because [wireless companies] bill mobile customers each month, they wouldn't have to pay credit-card charges to Visa or MasterCard. That's not much of an edge over iTunes when customers buy a $9.99 album," wrote Crockett. "But if they buy single songs for 99 cents at iTunes, the fees total a significant 17 cents to 20 cents. Bottom line: Verizon, Cingular, and Sprint could end up lowering their prices to $1 a song and still make more profit than Apple does."



    Maybe I'm a minority, but my cell phone is paid monthly automatically off my credit card.
  • Reply 23 of 67
    Quote:

    But is this an immediate concern for Apple? It could be. According to the article, the telecom approach has several strengths Apple can't match. "For starters, a quarter of the world's population already has a mobile phone. That's 1.4 billion people, compared with 10 million iPods sold to date. Most of those cell-phone toters pay a monthly phone bill, making it a snap to add a music charge. Perhaps most important, wireless technology could provide access anytime, anywhere to millions of songs."



    I can't understand this reasoning. OK, so 1.4 billion people have a mobile phone, but how many of them are of the cellphones with a jukebox? How many of them will use their current cellphones as an inPod replacement?

    Quote:

    Research firm Strategy Analytics estimates that in 2008 half of the 860 million cell phones sold will be able to store and play songs, compared to about 8% today.



    This is a much more reasonable argument to illustrate mobile carriers' advantage.

    Quote:

    Wireless operators in the US have to look no further than ringtones to know the proof is in the pudding. According to Business Week, these song snippets which go for $1 to $3 per download have evolved into a $5.8 billion business that is expected to reach $9.4 billion in 2008.



    I don't know much about the ringtone business and I don't really care about paying $3 for one to use with my cellphone, but really, do average people buy ringtones over and over? Or do they just buy a favorite song for their ringtone and that's it? Personally, I don't know anyone who keeps buying ringtones.
  • Reply 24 of 67
    maccrazymaccrazy Posts: 2,658member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by wnurse

    curious, how does an itunes phone offer more flexibility.

    What if verizon came out with their own product and offered songs for a buck. How is the itunes phone offering more flexibility. There would be only one way to get music to the phone and that's through itunes. How exactly is that flexible?. Have you read how this phone is supposed to work?.





    It's more flexible because you can play the song from the PC/Mac, iPod and phone, not just the phone as the carriers are suggesting. Also if it's an Apple solution it'll be like the iPod and extremely easy to use, probably by USB and BlueTooth. The iPods success is it's ease of use, that's what people want, not an expensive, limited option. I know what I'd choose, and most people, I'm sure would agree.



    $3 for a song played only on your phone - if phone's lost so is the song



    0.99¢ for a song playable on your Mac/PC, iPod and phone - if the phone's lost it was on the computer and vice versa.



    I think it's a clear choice. Also in the UK carriers charge for the download a swell a 4MB song would cost around £10 because they charge £2.35 per MB.



    But then I can't see the whole ringtone market so maybe the carriers have got a hit, I certainly wouldn't waste money on downloading stupid sounds for the ringtone (my phone is always on silent!)
  • Reply 25 of 67
    cmoneycmoney Posts: 21member
    The only advantage that the iTunes phone would offer a carrier would be IMHO marketing. By offering the iTunes phone, the carrier would be able to jump on the iTunes/iPod bandwagon and piggyback on the marketing and advertising that's already in place.



    "iPod mobile" anyone?



    I think the only mobile carrier this could work for would be T-Mobile. One of their marketing points is they're the "cool" mobile carrier and this plays in with the iPod cache. They also probably don't have the influence and power to negiotate successfully with the record labels so creating their own music store could be difficult.



    I just wish Motorola would release the phone already. As long as it's a GSM phone, it shouldn't matter what carrier you use it on.
  • Reply 26 of 67
    vvmpvvmp Posts: 63member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by MrSparkle

    This is why I hate phone/wireless companies. Why can't they charge the consumer for voice/data service, and nothing else? The whole process is totally convoluted. They shouldn't receive any payment from Apple. They should be making their money from the data transfer. That's it.



    I just laugh at all of this. The day my cellular service can handle voice calls without losing the signal is the day i will consider additional services like music dwnloads. Till then they can offer me trips to the moon but I will NOT pay an additional $.
  • Reply 27 of 67
    cmoneycmoney Posts: 21member
    Just thought of something else. This would be a perfect opportunity for Napster-To-Go to make some headway against Apple. The music rental model is perfect for the mobile market, imagine paying an additional $10 per month for access to a million songs that you can play anytime with your cell phone. And if you lose your phone, the songs are still there and next year when you buy a new phone and don't care about the songs you listened to on your old phone, you still get access to the latest and greatest. And honestly, the people who are gonna pay for music on cell phone plans are kids and young adults, who most likely listen to pop, hip-hop, rap, alternative, etc., genres that always have a "latest hit" that everyone wants to listen to.



    And an added advantage, what if you could reuse the subscription on your home computer for access to those same songs. They could follow satellite radio's model. $15/month for the first access line and $8 for each additional access line. So if you wanted just the cell phone access to Napster, it's $15/month. If you then wanted to add on access from your computer/mp3 device, it's an additional $8/month. Conversely if you have NTG already, it would cost $8/month additional to also get it on your cell phone. To incent mobile carriers to push the NTG phone, they'd get $10/month if the customer signs up with NTG through them, otherwise it's $5/month for current NTG customers. Mobile carriers get the added advantage on not running their own music store and the associated negotiations that are needed (though a company as big as Cingular or Verizon may feel they can get better rates than Napster).



    Anyway, this is off the top of my head, but the same thing could work for iTMS also if they offered a rental option. This could be the way for them to introduce the service.
  • Reply 28 of 67
    bdkennedy1bdkennedy1 Posts: 1,459member
    As much as Apple has pushed Motorola around about the phone I'm surprised ANYONE releases an iTunes phone.
  • Reply 29 of 67
    21122112 Posts: 36member
    I almost spit my drink all over my keyboard when I read this. Some of you guys make good points here, but don't underestimate T-Mobile even though they are a distant 4th right now. They are backed by Duetsche Telekom who know a thing or two about the business. If they pick this iTunes phone and run with it, they may be able to make people think twice about choosing a cell carrier who are big music lovers, like myself.



    I can't understand the fascination with ringtones, but I guess I am not in grade school anymore either. I just recently went to hear an A&R rep from RCA records talk to a class at NYU and I was astonished at how the ringtone market is growing and how much coin the record companies are making off them. With regard to future music services via the cell carriers, I'll shit myself the first time some pinhead pays $2 or $3 for a download that only plays on the handset.



    Is it true Apple does not want to share any revenue with the carriers? They may have to rethink this strategy if they want to get this service to the big boys at some point and get an economy of scale going. I agree with one of the posters who said that maybe the cost of running a music store is not in the best interest of the carriers right now - they better have a damn good model from the start.



    Just my rant.
  • Reply 30 of 67
    e1618978e1618978 Posts: 6,075member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by wnurse

    Which planet are you people from?. The most desirable buy their own unlocked phone?. You guys sure have significant amount of disposable income. Over 90% of the population do not buy their own unlocked phones. Only if a cell company is trying to get less than 10% market share would they consider folks who buy unlocked phones most desirable.



    Even from a financial perspective, buying unlocked phones is the only way to go. Think of all you are losing when you get a free phone:



    - usually you pay for a 2 year contract, most of the time that plan has more minutes than you need

    - no flexibility to change plans, unless they are more expensive

    - no flexibility to drop your service for a while if you won't be using the phone

    - if there is a special rate or rate drop during the contract period, you miss out

    - no ability to move to other services

    - if you move out of the good service area for a provider, then you are screwed

    - they disable bluetooth, from what I hear

    - limited ability to sell the phone on eBay when you want a better one



    Even if you are buying a cheap phone, buying an unlocked version is a better deal. I buy expensive phones, and use pre-paid wireless, because the non-phone (PDA, for example) functions of the device are more important to me than the calling - I save about $300/year compared to what I would pay "getting the phone for free" - so it pays for the phone in 2 years.
  • Reply 31 of 67
    Quote:

    Originally posted by TrevorD

    Or, there'll be a whole bunch of people who want the phone, because it offers more flexibility, and the music costs so much less. Customers flock to T-Mobile, leaving the other carriers in the dust. By the time the others catch up, T-Mobile is way out in the lead.



    HeHe. Thanks for the laugh.



    T-Mobile is a little fish.



    It's not leaving any of those other companies "in the dust" just because of an iTunes phone.



    That being said, I don't understand the logic that says because ringtones are $3 a pop, being able to transfer tracks bought from the iTMS to your phone would disrupt that business. I mean, maybe they'd have to lower the price for ringtones, which would be a good thing. But I don't think you would be able to set your iTunes playlist on your phone as your ringtone anyway.



    Oh well! Either way, bad news for Apple as far as cell phones go.
  • Reply 32 of 67
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by TrevorD

    Or, there'll be a whole bunch of people who want the phone, because it offers more flexibility, and the music costs so much less. Customers flock to T-Mobile, leaving the other carriers in the dust. By the time the others catch up, T-Mobile is way out in the lead.



    one problem - t-mobles coverage is worse than sprint - and sprint is horrible



    And if Apple cell phones fail, I would be just as happt - The last thing we need is moddern "music" coming from the crappy cell speaker - like we dont have enough of that already.
  • Reply 33 of 67
    cmoneycmoney Posts: 21member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by a_greer

    one problem - t-mobles coverage is worse than sprint - and sprint is horrible



    Depends on where you are. In my area, Sprint is horrible and T-Mobile is actually better.
  • Reply 34 of 67
    I would have to agree...in my area T-Mobile is way better than sprint. Its why I switched.



    Sprint = sit by window and hope for half a bar

    T-Mobile = 4 bars from inside closet of the bathroom in my basement



    Of coarse I know it varies for eveyrone...thats just me.



    Anyone want to sell me a Moto Rzr phone for 50 bucks so I can test it?
  • Reply 35 of 67
    vinney57vinney57 Posts: 1,162member
    From a European perspective T-mobile are actually a much bigger deal over here and do indeed have a cool-quotient that would be a fit for Apple. In addition there is more potential for unlocked phones and services across Europe. A very successful no-frills cheap pay-as-you-go service exists in Denmark (I think) and has completely changed the market there. Stelios from the Easy company is trying to the same in the UK but hasn't made huge headway yet.



    I think there is a definite possibility that people will become dissillusioned with the convoluted cross-subsidised price-fixed monopolies that the mobile carriers represent.
  • Reply 36 of 67
    shetlineshetline Posts: 4,695member
    Quote:

    Wireless operators in the US have to look no further than ringtones to know the proof is in the pudding. According to Business Week, these song snippets which go for $1 to $3 per download have evolved into a $5.8 billion business that is expected to reach $9.4 billion in 2008.



    Ringtones are a $5.8 billion business!?!? F*cking obnoxious ringtones? People have purchased something like 2,900,000,000 ringtones at around $2 apiece?!?!



    I need an escape plan from this planet. Fast.
  • Reply 37 of 67
    Quote:

    Originally posted by shetline

    Ringtones are a $5.8 billion business!?!? F*cking obnoxious ringtones? People have purchased something like 2,900,000,000 ringtones at around $2 apiece?!?!



    I need an escape plan from this planet. Fast.




    AGREED.
  • Reply 38 of 67
    maccrazymaccrazy Posts: 2,658member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Apparatus

    AGREED.



    can i come with you?
  • Reply 39 of 67
    kcmackcmac Posts: 1,051member
    "For starters, a quarter of the world's population already has a mobile phone. That's 1.4 billion people, compared with 10 million iPods sold to date."



    This is pretty much the same argument given when Apple came out with iTunes. Windows users 97%. Apple 2%. iTunes will die.



    Uhhhhhh. I think the phone companies that don't hop on board early will feel much like MS and Sony feel now.
  • Reply 40 of 67
    maccrazymaccrazy Posts: 2,658member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kcmac

    "For starters, a quarter of the world's population already has a mobile phone. That's 1.4 billion people, compared with 10 million iPods sold to date."



    This is pretty much the same argument given when Apple came out with iTunes. Windows users 97%. Apple 2%. iTunes will die.



    Uhhhhhh. I think the phone companies that don't hop on board early will feel much like MS and Sony feel now.




    I hope you're right, but it makes sense, iTunes is so appealing but then so is choosing a song wherever you are, it's just a shame the carriers always rip off their customers with ridiculous pricing.
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