Verizon and Sprint say no to the iTunes phone
posted April 19th 2005 11:42AM
As inconceivable as it must be for some people to imagine anyone saying no to Stevie J., BusinessWeek is reporting that both Sprint and Verizon Wireless have already said no to Motorola's iTunes phone. Rumors about tension between the carriers and Motorola and Apple have been running rampant ever since Moto scrapped the handset's unveiling last month, and it looks like the carriers, which are introducing their own wireless music download services later this year (BusinessWeek reports that Cingular, Verizon, and Sprint all have them in the works), are playing hardball now. They don't see any reason to cut Apple in on their relationship with their subscribers, and they definitely see no reason to subsidize a handset that encourages people to transfer music over from their PCs rather than buying it over-the-air (giving their subscribers what they really want is always a secondary concern).
I guess Paris Hilton won't has one
Verizon blocking a technology their customers want in favor of a more expensive and less user-friendly alternative? That kind of thing is (http://www.engadget.com/entry/6314322665586311/) unprecedented :-P
seeing over here(in the UK) you could get full track download for months
the US is REALLY behind in terms of the mobile phone market.
"giving their subscribers what they really want is always a secondary concern"
Since when is giving customers what they want even on their list of considerations at all?
Hey, people are stupid enough to buy this crap from the carriers, why *shouldn't* they cut out everyone else?
Ok, gotta run listen to the 2GB of music that I transferred from my computer to my phone now... bye!
Could I hate Verizon any more? I have switched from them twice and regretted it both times because of inferior reception. But, BOY DO I HATE THEM. Crippled bluetooth and monopolistic poliicies. I wish someone would bankrupt thier asses.
I love the last line: "giving their subscribers what they really want is always a secondary concern)."
Could I hate Verizon any more? I have switched from them twice and regretted it both times because of inferior reception. But, BOY DO I HATE THEM. Crippled bluetooth and monopolistic poliicies. I wish someone would bankrupt thier asses.
What do you expect... theyse guys are businesses. They want to make the buck. I hate them for doing it... and I think they are idiots, because they are just proloinging the inevitable.
The US has a problem... they want everything free. If you had $300-600 for a phone that you get for free or half price then you may have a right to complain... but you never get something for nothin...Verizon is a different story... they just suck :)
But I consult in the mobile content space and I know that these carriers are struggling to retain customers, and this is easy money.
If anyone out there were a carrier you would do the same thing...
Awesome! I love it when people hate the carrier they are with! Especially Mighty, who keeps going back and complaining.
If you don't like your carrier (or their practices and policies), don't use them!
If you want REAL choice, try GSM. Then you can get any GSM phone you want, anytime.
i'm surprised that some sort of agreement with carriers wasn't forged before announcement of the phone. oops! let the finger pointing begin.
Its not that easy. I am a freelance worker. I live in LA. When I swithched to T-Mobile I consistently would miss calls or be out of a service area. After missing out on my biggest job offer ever (at the time) because of a missed call. I switched back to Verizon.
As for UniFi, I am not sure if you are just looking for a reason to bash the US but I expecty nothing for free. I have just seen every device I have ever bought from Verizon be crippled in some way. There is a big difference between wanting something for free and expecting that a device you purchased would not be hamstrung.
The overpriced verizon "services" should be for people who are too confused or too lazy to fully use their phone's potential.
Do you think if we threw bricks in the windows of Verizon/Sprint/Cingular they'd change their minds?
the note should say "D0oDz Y0u 5uck!"
Cingular said no too?!? Don't they have a buisness relationship with Apple anyway? I seem to remember something about that from a keynote a while back. Anyway, wireless carriers are a dime a dozen, looks like i may be switching to T-Mobile.
Why doesn't Moto and Apple just release this phone as a unlocked GSM phone? Then you could use Cingular or T-Mobile on it, transer your music from your pc/mac and be good to go? Seems like a simple solution to me.
...oh wait Moto doesn't want to piss off the cell companies who carry thier phones, I get it. Just release it in Europe and I'll import it.
I have a sinking suspicion that this whole phone-iTunes thing could be the nascent first smells of Apple's iPod undoing. I love my iPod, but I'm tired of carrying it around with my cell. Stick a microdrive in the phone, cobble together a half-decent iTunes-like interface... of course, shopping for music on a phone sounds lame, and sync'ing it with iTunes is critical. ARGH! Nobody wins!
Don't buy music only for listening on a phone. Buy the CD, rip it to your pc, and transfer it to your phone, ipod etc.
Buy music once on a cd, you get the best quality, artwork and a physical medium. Don't buy music more than once: cd/phone/itunes etc.
Oh well, I'll wait till the Sony Ericsson W800i walkman phone comes out in the fall and switch my sim card from my SE S710a and be ready to roll.
"I have a sinking suspicion that this whole phone-iTunes thing could be the nascent first smells of Apple's iPod undoing."
And I have a feeling it's the first smells of the cell phone companies' undoing.
They're pulling an RIAA here. It's a desperation move, and it's going to backfire. They think there's this pent-up demand for mp3 cell phones and that they're going to charge $3 a song, and they're going to end up flat on their faces while Apple keeps selling iPods and laughing all the way to the bank.
Apple's going to keep gaining market share - you can keep telling yourselves they won't, but good luck with that line of thinking. The comment above notwithstanding, I don't personally know a single person who's got any music player and says "you know, I really wish I could GET RID OF THIS THING and instead listen to music on my PHONE." It just doesn't happen, or at least not often. People love their music players, and people who don't own them either want one, or they just don't care about portable music. There is no pent-up demand for music on cell phones here - certainly not for $3 a pop (maybe the $5 a month all-you-can-eat thing like they have in Korea would work, but that is obviously not the kind of pricing that the carriers here are after).
Just yesterday I saw some analyst with juniper or one of these companies saying Apple's going to sell 15 million ipods this year. They've already sold 10 million. There are 300 million people in this country, 98 million households. At that rate of growth, I mean seriously, you do the math here. The cell phone companies are out of time - if 25 million people have iPods by the end of the year, they can already forget about selling music themselves, at *any* price.
APPLE WILL NOT GO DOWN!!!!!!!!!!
If anyone at apple is listening; here's the deal with my IPOD.
The Ipod stays in the car; I only take it out of the car when I want to update the music on it. It's perfect for parties with it's jukebox type features. It is definitley a pain to carry with a cell phone (I did by a shuffle recently and love the portability - you can take it anywhere unlike it's bigger sister and brothers) The big IPODS (mini and above) will definitley fade with the times unless you make it recordable (standard) with mac mini like features; wow think about it!?; a 60gb Ipod with color screen (like the treo) bluetooth/wifi built in; and a keyboard peripheral (again like the treo with the qwerty keyboard layout w/ ability to dial for phone use) make it a mac super mini on the go!!!!!, Itunes anyplace anywhere anytime! VOIP so that we can say.......
@#$% YOU! To Sprint, Verizon, Cingular and Motorola and all the cell phone monopolies!
The PSP has that snazzy memory stick duo that I can cram loads of mp3's into.
The treo is with me at all times and is the key device; I'm always around a computer or laptop and my music is constantly updated on the treo.
You know, this kind of reminds me of a review of the movie of Minority Report that said something to the effect of 'why does all the future technology look like crap yet people love it?' (referring to the 3D home movies).
I think the same thing when I hear music coming out of the crapfest speaker that is on most phones these days, yet it's popular than ever.
I doubt that the iPod is going to be knocked off the top of the hill by cell phone companies. There were plenty of MP3 players, even hard drive MP3 players, before the iPod was released and none of them caught on. iPod has a unique combination of form factor, ease-of-use (including fast sync), and open standard support (rip your own CDs, use your own MP3 collection, or buy from Apple). Cell phone companies aren't going to have the UI (name one phone that even comes close to the iPod's interface), and will in all likelihood lack any support for open standards - the cell phone companies aren't going to get into this game to sell phone hardware, they want to lock you in to buying your services from them. And I seriously doubt that they have any interest in allowing you to use the music you buy on your cell phone on other devices. Not to mention the fact that they will likely compress the music very heavily in order to minimize network utilization for music downloads.
I'm betting that this will also be used as a weapon against local-number-portability - all your music will probably dissapear if you change carriers.
No thanks!
congratulations to cell phone carriers for monopolizing what will turn out to be a $10,000 a year industry...
Remember, all the "telcos say no to Apple" stuff is still unsubstantiated rumor. No telco has officially come out to say they won't carry the iTunes phone.
Just a word of caution, since so many stories are carrying the above as gospel.
I for one don't approve of Apple venturing into cell phones with their monopolistic "FairPlay" DRM. So the only way to get songs on this iTunes phone would be via the iTMS. I'd rather get a GSM Phone from Samsung with a built-in HDD allowing me to download songs from whereever I want and put 'em on my phone and use it on the GSM carrier of my choice.
Screw Verizon and Apple both.
And as a side note, any of today's phones can be connected to a PC via USB for a few bucks. Just check for a cable for your particular phone on eBay.
MAKES NO SENSE!?!
Why don't the carriers look at it as an opportunity to gouge customers for airtime? They already charge for downloading other data. How is this different?
#24, wrong. iTunes has been around for much longer than the iTunes music store. What makes you think that Apple requires all music that is put on iPods to be music purchased from them? Because they don't.
hard to take (or reject) a phone that dosen't exist. there is no cdma version of this phone (for that check the e725). this article is based on obvious facts about the business model of cdma carriers (walled garden) vs gsm carriers (open garden)... nothing new here... hense why there's no cdma version of this phone in development.
I'm probably in the minority considering the enormous appeal of the iPod but I'm not into buying, downloading, programming, storing and transferring music. I'd much rather listen to radio that someone else programs, broadcasts and pay a subscription fee each month. I guess I'm lazy and want to be spoon fed like TV. I also don't want to have to transfer or lose my privately owned music collection when my phone breaks or I'm ready to get a new one in 18 months. I think I'd rather have a competitive assortment of live streaming radio stations/channels on my cell phone than iTunes/iPod.
#24, is your last name Dumbass? (pronounced Duuumass) We're talking about Apple and Motorola, not Sony! The phone would support MP3 playback and for purchased music it would support AAC with the Fairplay DRM.
The so-called iTunes phone was all a load of hype anyway. There are plenty of phones that can play MP3's and even some that can play AAC (unprotected *.m4a files like iTunes rips by default). The whole deal was that Moto was going to stick Apple's DRM on their phones and do some kind of iTunes Lite player or store app. BFD.
As for the Operators - they've got some crazy ass idea they'll make money selling music over their networks and although that might work abroad, it's gonna be tough here in the US. Apple's already set the price for a track - it's 99 cents. There will be some impulsive people but not many who'll pay more than that. Also you can bet cold hard cash that the tracks will never work with your iPod as they'll be loaded with DRM double-fat coating. Bloody worthless.
I'd love to see Apple buy out Palm & blend the iPOD and Treo lines. Partner up with Sir Richard Branson w/ Virgin mobile and turn the US cell phone market on it's ear. Yes, I know it's not that simple, but the US cell industry needs a wakeup call from a herd of p.o.'d IPOD owners who are also cell phone users, which has to be at least 80% overlap. Get 1/3 of them to leave their current carriers for a 'new world' mobile company, and you have a growing business. If you've ever been in an Apple store and seen the sheer number of IPOD accessories people are springing for, imagine what people would spend on iPhone accessories.
Once the franchise is rolling, expanding their service mix to encompass more consumer services at home is a natural. Computing, broadband access, TIVO, video-on-demand, etc.
Then partner with Sony on PSP, PS3. The Apple brand has cache' world-wide. Leverage it, but don't dilute it with inferior products.
#29 No, I believe that was your dad's last name before he changed it to "Spin". Get it, Axle Spin?
Everyone knows that Apple DRM is the least consumer friendly scheme out there, and with every upgrade of the iTMS client, they add more restrictions on how you can use the music YOU_PAID_FOR.
And lastly I don't give a crap about either iPod, Apple or their stupid phone if it ever comes out. As I said, I'd rather buy a simple GSM phone with a built-in hard-drive and without any proprietary software included with it. Trust me, in a year, that all the ones that people would be buying.
I too am frustrated at Sprint's slow adoption/crippling of bluetooth, hampering of USB-tethering, spoon-fed feature upgrades, high cost of data card plans, etc.
Probably two things at play here: carriers don't make much off handset sales, but they saw the iTunes phone as a potential revenue stream through music sales. But the cost in network resources to stream 3-5 MB of music straight to a phone, at least currently, exceeds anything that could be made out of the likely tiny cut they would get from a $0.99 track. Record labels already want more $$$ than their current cut of iTMS sales, and Steve (thankfully) won't budge.
The other thing is now that iPod shuffle is out, Steve surely doesn't want to cannibalize sales (after all, what's the point if your phone can do everything the shuffle can) so the solution is to make it desktop syncable like the shuffle, & command a hefty premium for the use of iTunes on a phone, which again eats into carrier revenue or raises the cost of handsets to unmarketable levels.
Down with Verizon and Sprint! Bring on more Jamster commercials for my latest "Knuck if U Buck" remix and asian text background for "Sexy!"
Amen #32! I can see synergies out the yingyang between those companies. An iPod/Treo on an EV-DO-enabled Virgin would turn the telcos on their ear. Imagine using the Blazer browser with EV-DO speed to download to your phone from iTunes, then sync that badboy up with your PC via Bluetooth or wifi....that would be ideal........and even better, Apple would definitely lop that fat ass antenna off the Treo! :)
before getting too excited about an apple/treo/virgin combo don't forget - Virgin is a virtual carrier riding on sprint's network. sprint would probably veto what you have in mind
After reading a Business Week iTunes phone story on 4/20/05, I e-mailed a brief and curt message to the Sprint PCS business unit's customer service address. The next morning, I received a VERY interesting, but somewhat cryptic response. Could it be that someone at Sprint inadvertently spilled forthcoming news?:
My orginal e-mail to Sprint PCS:
FYI: I will NEVER subscribe to a Sprint music download service. I want Apple iTunes compatibility for music and full computer connectivity. Get onboard with this or I'm out of here...
Sprint's response:
Dear George,
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve you.
Currently an external vendor offers the ringers and other downloadable items, which are available in the content catalog section on our PCS Web Site. We introduce new ringers from time to time on our Web site.
Whenever the Apple iTunes, will be launched numerous promotional offers and media should alert you of the changes.
I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule and contacting us regarding Apple iTunes. Please know that I have forwarded your feedback to the appropriate departments.
We value your loyalty and look forward to serving you for years to come.
Camelia M.
Sprint Business eCare
After reading a Business Week iTunes phone story on 4/20/05, I e-mailed a brief and curt message to the Sprint PCS business unit's customer service address. The next morning, I received a VERY interesting, but somewhat cryptic response. Could it be that someone at Sprint inadvertently spilled forthcoming news?:
My orginal e-mail to Sprint PCS:
FYI: I will NEVER subscribe to a Sprint music download service. I want Apple iTunes compatibility for music and full computer connectivity. Get onboard with this or I'm out of here...
Sprint's response:
Dear George,
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve you.
Currently an external vendor offers the ringers and other downloadable items, which are available in the content catalog section on our PCS Web Site. We introduce new ringers from time to time on our Web site.
Whenever the Apple iTunes, will be launched numerous promotional offers and media should alert you of the changes.
I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule and contacting us regarding Apple iTunes. Please know that I have forwarded your feedback to the appropriate departments.
We value your loyalty and look forward to serving you for years to come.
Camelia M.
Sprint Business eCare