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Sirius Confirms iPod Satellite Talks
An anonymous reader writes "Remember those iPod Satellite rumors last December? Mel Karmazin, the CEO of Sirius Satellite Radio, announced at the 2005 Media Summit that he had discussions with Steve Jobs about the possibility of putting Sirius' technology in future iPods. Steve's response? Not interested."
Songs in iPod will grow old and users will eventually buy new ones to replace the olds, and iTunes the cash cow is waiting.
Being a satellite radio will allow users to use iPod without purchasing anything thing more from Apple.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Adding satellite radio to iPods could create an awesome portable media player. I don't own an ipod, but adding this functionality might convince me to buy one. The capability to listen to satellite radio, and my own downloaded songs on a single device is a very attractive combination. I think jobs screwed up here... I think they'd sell tons of those units.
I store my recipes online (the way nature intended)
I don't claim to be an expert on the subject, but I think he made the right choice.
Satellite radio has limited appeal. I don't know many people that are excited about the idea of radio you have to pay for, commercials or not. Digital Radio (Digital FM & AM) will offer CD quality broadcasts in the near future effectively killing the satellite Radio market.
I discovered MP3s nearly 10 years the time I spend listening to the radio has decreased. Even before that CD players often omitted a radio tuner further effecting how I listen to music. The iPod and other MP3 players have eliminated my need for radio.
The impeding failure of satellite radio aside, I don't see how it would even fit into Apple's bigger plan for the iPod. The iPod allows us to create out own personalized 'radio station' without commercials.
Now I'm just dependant on friends to introduce me to new music. I think they have better taste then the DJ's and what the big labels want to shove down my though any way.
If you consider that any song that is ripped from original media instead of being downloaded from the iTunes store is a potential loss of revenue for Apple, then you can see how Steve would be against the idea.
With Apple at the forefront of online music stores, it makes sense that we support them by buying our portable music at iTunes rather than listening to radio (whether free or otherwise). Not only can we, the listeners, decide what we want to hear at any given time, it benefits Apple in a way that mere words cannot.
Steve Jobs has again seen the correct path. While it may hurt Sirius XM in the short term, in the long term I think it will be a boon to everyone to have a strong Apple Computer company.
There is a very simple explanation for this. Satellite radio is not yes sufficiently fault-free to be put into a mass market portable device yet. This article from the NY Times looks at one of the first such portable devices and explains why it doesn't work. The radios require line-of-sight to the satellite (so you can forget about all the subway commuters, the primary city iPod audience), and need a good antenna to get a really clear signal. There's also too much "geek factor" involved in all the various attachments necessary to get it to work properly in different conditions (a separate antenna for each type of listening location).
Apple is not interested in the iPod becoming (just) a geek toy. Most users, I suspect, would want satellite radio to work normally if they are underground, lying around in their apartment, or walking through the streets -- just like their iPods do now. Until Apple can figure out a way to get the technology to work as simply as most people expect, they'd rather not add it to a mass-product device.
I suspect Apple will eventually be the first company to offer a really usable satellite radio device though. Jobs likes to say no until the technology is ready.
This is just a conjecture on my part, but it seems that one of Jobs' insights, or pecadilloes, or whatevers about selling is that he thinks people hate supscriptions. He could have made iTMS a subscription service, but didn't, and he prospered. He shows little interest in Sirius because you only really rent Sirius or XM, and perhaps he takes a given that this makes people think twice before buying -- subscriptions are the anathema of gee-whiz, they reek of responsibility and if you are being sold a subscription, you're going to put a lot more thought into it before you do it. It also perhaps worth remarking, if only in passing, that the most successful internet/IT ventures of the last decade have been either free to the consumer (Yahoo, Google) or paid on instance of use (eBay, Amazon).
Contrast this with everyone's M$ conspiracy theory, where .NET is a big trap to suck everyone into paying monthly to use Word. I don't think this would work; imagine all those home users seeing "MICROSOFT.COM THANKS YOU-0231" on their Amex statement every month, and then wondering if there was another way. Even if monthly subscriptions are cheaper than buying a new package every 5 years, the psychological impact of paying monthly for something that only seems to get more features every year or two would insurmountable (and, after all, how many features could they possibly add to Word to justify the constant payment, the days the net is slow, etc.)
So, I guess I agree with Jobs on this, and I have doubts about subscriptions for pure information services.
Although, I do have .mac.... Hmm. I'm a hippocrite.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
But there's no reason Apple couldn't make money off of both hardware and a music service. If I were Steve Jobs, I'd be downlplaying the long-term profitability of the iTMS every chance I could get, for the sole purpose of scaring competitors away. Look at Real, for example. With no hardware to sell, they're still trying to compete with the iTMS, and so far with limited success.
If Apple can outlast competitors in the online music store arena, it could start making a healthy profit at it. From there, migration into an online video download service seems like a natural progression (when the labels and consumers are ready for it).
Apple seems to be moving into the place Sony would like to be - the nexus of the consumer digital lifestyle. If that's the case, the old, "Repeat after me: Apple is a hardware company" mantra may not hold up for long.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Satellite Radio is much like a TiVo. Those who don't have it, don't really miss it. Those that do, can't imagine life without it.
A year ago, my wife bought me a TiVo for my birthday and I got her a Sirius Sattelite radio. It seemed like a good deal at the time, I rarely listened to the radio and she didn't watch much T.V. A year later, she spends all of her time watching TiVo and I spend all my time listening to sattelite radio.
Since getting sattelite radio, I have pretty much stopped downloading mp3's (don't need them, too much good music on Sirius). A couple of months ago, I bought my first CD in THIRTEEN YEARS. I'm not joking, the last album I paid money for music before this past December was Tesla's Edison's Medicine in 1991.
Sure, you can download several hundred songs for your iPod and create your own commercial free radio, but describing Sattelite Radio as commercial free is like describing Open Source software a software you don't have to pay for. Commercial free is just scratching the surface.
i'd buy a $10 radio, not drop hundreds on an iPod.
I certainly wouldn't spend hundreds on a radio, so i could listen to someone elses playlist on someone elses timetable.
I mean really, a large collection of MP3 music and other audio content (with new content discoverable and downloadable via P2P, Mp3 streaming stations, podcast feeds etc.) has completely removed any reason i might have to listen to the radio.
If Sirius or XM makes up the bulk of the content you listen to, you don't need an iPod - just a compact Sirius/XM receiver - i'm sure its illegal to actually record Sirius/XM content, so theres a very limited amount of value a hard-drive based receiver brings to the table.
Why don't they just make an addon like the iTrip?
I mean - if the capability to play Sirius/XM on the iPod is a feature lots of people are wanting, it should sell like hotcakes, right?
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long