Motorola Unveils iRadio

sayanchak writes "Motorola is introducing iRadio in its 2nd edition of the ROKR cell phone. An article in Reuters says that iRadio will be a subscription music service that will go on sale this year. This will put Motorola in competition with other such services like XM Satellite Radio Holdings and Sirius Satellite Radio." From the article: "The iRadio service will cost about $7 (4 pounds) a month but the price may vary depending on which wireless phone service the subscriber uses, according to Motorola. U.S. service providers including Cingular Wireless and Verizon Wireless are planning mobile music download services for this year. Sprint Nextel has already launched music download and streaming services. Motorola did not reveal any service provider partnerships but said it hopes to sell the service in conjunction with wireless operators, which could sell subscribers a wireless download of a song that they discovered through iRadio."

Comments

Asinine

[Golias]

On the heels of mostly failing to sell a phone with iTunes bolted on, they are now trying to jump into a market (subscription-based music downloads) where nobody is making money.

I've got a Motorola phone right now, and for the most part I'm miserable with it. Sure, it has a lot of spiffy features, but it kind of sucks as a phone. Not only is it of limited reliability, but they made all kinds of goofy interface decisions.

For example, I need to be "in a call" for about two seconds before I can turn on the speakerphone feature. It's impossible to answer it on the speaker, or place a call over it. Instead I must talk to the person with the phone to my ear for a couple seconds, say "hang on", press a button on the face of the phone just so, wait another half second, ask the person on the other end to say something to indicate that it worked, try pushing the button again if it didn't, rinse, repeat.

How stupid is that? The whole point of a speakerphone is to avoid fucking around with it. If I take a call when I'm on the road, it's actually safer to just keep listening through the earpiece.

A minor annoyance, yes... but one of many with this piece of crap.

The Japanese market went ga-ga for cameras, text-messaging, ring-tones, etc., but from what I've seen, most Americans want a phone that works easilly and reliably as a phone more than anything else. Someday, a phone maker will become clueful about this fact, and they will sell them like hotcakes. I know I'll be in line for one.