MusicPhones
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Hop On promises aggressive defense of MP3 phone patent
If you've already got yourself a music phone, you might wanna hold onto it for awhile, because some forthcoming patent "extortion" promises to jack up prices on any model with side-mounted speakers. You probably remember handset manufacturer Hop On from some of its low end wares that we've covered, and now the company has just received a design patent on an "MP3 Phone with speakers on the side, in addition to front and side buttons to activate its camera/video features." No big deal, except for the fact that Hop On plans to seek royalties for all past and future cellphones that it considers to be infringing on its IP -- in other words, millions upon millions of units. So keep your eyes open, because if the Moto's, Nokia's, and LG's of the world aren't down with Hop On's licensing proposals, it's likely we'll see a whole slew of lawsuits in an industry that already has more than its fair share of squabbling players.[Via Electronista]
Gimme a break: iPod marketshare "14%"?
Paul Thurrott, in his constant quest to belittle Apple and its followers, links to an article by a group called "Communities Dominate Brands" regarding iPod and its marketshare in the MP3 Player World. I won't get too deep into it, but the gist of the article can be summed up in a few sentences: "The whole MP3 player market worldwide for the second quarter of 2006 is not 10 million units, from which Apple could claim four out of five units. In reality the MP3 player market is about 56 million units (48 million MP3 playing musicphones, 8 million iPods, and 2 million non-Apple brand stand-alone MP3 players)," they write. "So Apple's quarterly market share is not 77% like it was back in 2004 before musicphones. In this quarter Apple's market share is 14%"While I'm not going to "react to this article as if it were the insane ramblings of a 9/11 conspiracy theorist," as Thurrott predicts, I will ask some very valid questions: How many of those 48 million actually use the MP3 player functionality of their phone aside from ringtones? Maybe 1%? And how many of those 48 million own and use an iPod as their main MP3 player? Do you see anyone walking around listening to their phone instead of their iPod? Nnno.I have friends who own phones that can act as MP3 players, but none of them use it as such. They all use iPods instead -- and I think that trend is pretty global.What say you, ye members of the Mac Elite: is the iPod being marginalized by the insurgence of MP3-playin' cells, or will the one-purpose device live on, putting to shame the limited and tedious functionality of the swiss-army port-o-phones? Is Apple's only salvation the future iPhone?
