Mobile devices Toolkit

Story: Is Apple driving music to mobiles?

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Cell Phone & Music Labels - Idiots. Just like there were dozens of music stores pre-itunes but they were designed by idiots - just like 99.99% of cell phone interfaces- they can't even design it so you can change the time easily, how are they going to design it so you download, listen and move through your music library? that's right - they can't. Never mind that who's going to run down their cell phone battery so they can't use it to talk? The music industry also thinks if they can sell a $2.50 30-second ringtone, pro-rated, they should be able to sell a single for $6.50 ... how do you create a ringtone? Rip a CD, launch audio software, clip it (where to clip?), convert it to a ringtone format - figure out how to get it onto your machine or pay someone $2.50 ... expensive but CONVENIENT because the 2nd choice is for tech-heads and time consuming. $.99 might be an acceptable choice to download a track since you can start listening to it in about 8 sconds - VERY CONVENIENT ... but for $4 a track or $7 a track? You might buy one if your girlfriend leaves you in the desert and the next Amtrak is 8 hours away but on a constant basis? No - not to mention that other than old school journalists, everybody knows you can convert any itunes song to a CD - Downloaded tracks - what fidelity? What DRM?

Not to mention the other side, sounds like fun - but who's going to build the music store - every mobile phone company? Negotiate with 10 labels, get tracks labeled and loaded onto servers? Design a store - test it in every possible way? Hire hundreds of people for tech & CS support? How's that Wal-Mart online music store doing - how's the WORLD'S LARGEST retailer with nearly $275 BILLION in sales doing in cyberspace?

As well as the mobile companies and their premium services now? Wasn't there an article about low sales and high churn? And they want people to pay more? If they really do it - it will fail miserably because they cannot design interfaces, they have poor customer support already and poor batteries - they are a utility - the problem is they look at a powerpoint chart and think there's BILLIONS just for the plucking, they're wrong - if they really want to make money, they should sell the itunes phones AT FULL PRICE and then charge $5 a month for Bluetooth access.

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