Sprint Music Store's tracks set to go phone-only
A great feature -- or, at least we thought it was a great feature -- of mobile music stores is that you're not eternally shackled to listening to the track on your crappy little handset. Buying and listening to music on the road is all well and good, and admittedly, it's probably the typical mode of operation -- but when you get home, it's nice to have your dollar-each tracks available for download on the desktop. Sprint wants to move away from that model, though, announcing that tracks purchased in its Music Store will skip PCs altogether in favor of a phone-only model starting October 15; you'll still be able to back up tracks to your computer, but they'll only play on the phone. That's awesome, totally logical, and a surefire way for Sprint to turn a profit on its music service when competitors are offering DRM-free tracks that can play anywhere you damn well please for the same 99 cents Sprint's charging. Something tells us this won't last long -- Sprint will either relent, outsource its music biz to a more capable third party, or stop offering music directly altogether. Or so we hope.
