Sprint Launchings Music to Mobile Downloads

* * Beatles-Beatles writes to tell us that Sprint Nextel is looking to take a bite out of Apple's iTunes pie with the upcoming release of the first music download service direct to mobile phones. The service offers the ability to get the song directly to your phone in addition to a high quality version that you can download to your PC. From the article: "The Sprint Music Store will enable subscribers of the third-largest mobile carrier to choose from 250,000 songs from all four major music labels and download them for $2.50 each using phones from either Samsung Electronics or Sanyo Electric."

Comments

How's the quality?

[ankarbass]

Is it at least 2.5 times as good as iTunes? Since when did music become like crack that we have to have it so bad that we'll pay $2.50 to hear it on a crappy sprint speaker? When I was a kid the best you could hope for was that there were some stickers in the album (dark side of the moon) that you could stare at until you got home to play your new record.

Music on My Cell Phone

[queenb**ch]

Ok,

I have napster, sattelite radio, an iPod, a laptop, and a Treo650 which are all perfectly capable of playing MP3's. Now they're going to make you buy a special phone in order to get their songs. I guess if people are stupid enough to pay $2.50 for a ring tone that evaporates in 90 days, it will be a resounding success. Napster is still $9.99 a month for all you can download. I can have 4 songs on my cell phone or 400 on laptop which synchs with my cell phone....Hmmmm....golly, I can't decide....

2 cents,

Queen B

Re:Music on My Cell Phone

[JanneM]

This may come as a shock to people here, but the vast majority of people do not use their computer to manage large music collections. Most people do not in fact use their computer for music at all. A substantial fraction of any industrialized country's population do not in fact even own a computer.

And getting a special phone? Rather you get that nice phone with the neat design and cool themes that's on offer from your carrier and you will find the music player tucked right in there. And it will be right there, in the main screen menu, ready to use whenever you fancy a new song - including on the way home from the club/pub/bar/concert where you heard that amazing new song that you and that girl/boy/tentacled alien danced to all night and you just need to hear it again and again right now.

To put in another way, if you are reading this, on slashdot, right now, then you are not the target audience.

Re:selection down, price up

[neillewis]

If they can get away with it for ringtones, of course they'll try and gouge you for songs too.

Just say no.

Pah

[Trogre]

Yet another pay-as-you-go phone service.

What we really need is for someone to port eMule or bitTorrent implementations to mobile phones.

The Hell?

[EdwinBoyd]

My only explanation for the ridiculous price is that they must be looking at the sales of ringtones (which with my carrier can cost up to $3.00 plus download fees). If people are stupid enough to pay that much for a polyphonic midi of a song then they might have a niche business. If they're trying to compete with iTunes they're in for a big surprise. People rarely buy more than a half dozen ringtones whereas ITMS users purchase entire albums at a go.

Is there a music exec sitting in an office somewhere giggling to himself saying "Wait till Apple gets a load of this!!"?

Re:selection down, price up

[kubevubin]

The problem here is that there are plenty of people who would pay $2.50 per song simply because they're too retarded to transfer music to their phone manually.

Streaming Is Apple's Nemesis

[meehawl]

When the carriers finally get enough bandwidth to deploy always-on streaming is when Apple really has to worry. With sufficient bandwidth for streaming, carriers can link up with cable/phone providers to sell "all you can eat", ala Napster-To-Go or Yahoo Unlimited subscription services. Offer to bill people an extra $10 monthly on their mobile bill for unlimited music or personalised radio? That's an easy sell. People can move their playlists between their phones, their HTPCs, their stereos, and their cars. With that system, the idea of paying per-item licence fees ala Apple will seem as quaint as laserdisc. And about as permanent a media investment.

Re:selection down, price up

[ickleberry]

I wouldn't. But then again, I use a cell phone to just make and receive calls. Not to take pictures, or function as a PDA, or annoy people with custom ring tones.
You're boring. I use mine to ssh into my machines & send emails. custom ringtones arent annoying, that way you always know its your phone and other people dont think its theirs. but the stuff that is sold through operators is hardly "custom" is it? its just a generic extention of what you had when you bought the phone

First? No. First in the US, maybe...

[The Ancients]

We've had music available for purchase via Vodafone for quite some time now. For those interested:

http://vodafone.co.nz/vlive/3g/experience_music.js p?item=experience3g&subitem=music

NZ$3.50 each though - no way I'm going to be paying that...

Re:Goodie

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, if it's a Sprint offering, the price is the least of their problems. Even if they were going to PAY YOU 2.50 per song, they'd find a way to fuck it up.

Re:selection down, price up

[GlassHeart]

Others are willing to pay hundreds of dollars per hour because they are too retarded to unclog their own plumbing. Still others pay $50 several times a year because they are too retarded to change the oil in their own engine. I hear some are so retarded they even pay other people to cook their food for them!

We're all retards at one thing or another, friend. Please be kind.

Biting

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Medial

Please refrain from using "take a bite out of apple" in every single article relating on "attacks" towards Apple. I mean, it isn't like it hasn't been used before. Trust me, it isn't creative nor is it funny anymore.

Seriously.

Thanks,
The Public

Not the first

[greggman]

Sorry, but there are already music to cell phone download services in Korea, Japan and other places. Sprint's is hardly the first

This just in

[LaughingCoder]

There is another article in Ars Technical (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051031-550 3.html) that says:

Users will also be able to copy music purchased via the store to their PCs and burn it to CD. In addition, they will be able to load 16-32MB of their own music on to the new phones if they choose.

I *assume* the 16-32MB *limit* is because that is the size of the bundled cards. So it looks like you CAN put music you already own into your phone. And if you did put in a 1GB card you can have a pretty decent portable music player that is also a phone. I think that makes this a much more significant announcement. I'm surprised they don't play that angle up more. Seems to me that Sprint has 2 distinct advantages over the iTunes phone: no 100 song limit and the ability (if you want) to buy a song instantly over-the-air.