iTunes Competitors Line Up (Samsung, Sprint)

[MacRumors]

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The Korea Times reports (http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/biz/200510/kt2005103018433411890.htm) that Samsung is currently in talks with their partners to "debute a service program like iTunes of Apple. Our No. 1 priority is to help customers use our products with ease".

Ironically, Samsung is the company which is supplying Apple with the NAND Flash memory for the iPod nano (http://guides.macrumors.com/IPod_nano_(1G)).

Meanwhile, Sprint Nextel has launched (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9879430/) the first US music download service aimed at mobile phone users.

The Sprint Music Store enables Sprint customers to download songs for $2.50/each. Sprint has lined up 250,000 songs from all four major music labels. For $2.50, customers get both a lower-quality phone version as well as the high-quality (WMA) version for their PC.

The pricing of the Sprint service, almost two-a-half-times the 99 cents that iTunes charges for a download, reflects the belief among mobile carriers that consumers will pay a premium to buy music while they are on the move, an assumption some analysts dispute.

Comparisons, of course, are made with the Motorola ROKR iTunes capable phone. As previously reported, Apple does not offer over-the-air iTunes purchasing. Instead, requiring you to copy songs over from your PC or Mac.

[yoak]

I would love to be able to buy songs on the go.
I was recently in Berlin for a shoot, my wife had the ibook at home. I wanted to buy some new music for the dull nights at the hotel, but with no ibbok there was no way to get them on my ipod.
I found myself fantazising about buying music via my phone, but for 2,5 times the price?
Forget it.

[quigleybc]

too expensive

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[Josh396]

too expensive

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Yeah I really can't see paying that much for it but I'm sure there are some people who will.

[Tux Kapono]

People will buy one or two songs at that price for a ring tone, but not more than that. Some companies are a bit too greedy for their own good, hurting their brand name with smart consumers in the process.

[superleccy]

At that price, I may use the service once every couple of years. No more.

[mkubal]

You'd think for $2.50 each, Sprint would have secured more than a quarter million songs. Surely the record companies would love to give you access to their entire libraries if people (suckers) will buy them for that outrageous price.

I know people are stupid, but I really can't see this going anywhere.

[longofest]

You'd think for $2.50 each, Sprint would have secured more than a quarter million songs. Surely the record companies would love to give you access to their entire libraries if people (suckers) will buy them for that outrageous price.

I know people are stupid, but I really can't see this going anywhere.

You really think record companies are seeing most of that 2.50? This isn't like the iTunes Music store, where the record companies get most of the dough. This looks to be Spring/Nextel getting a lot more cash/song, especially since they have to recover costs of using a much more expensive distribution medium.

[backspinner]

much more expensive distribution medium.don't forget that in this case they own the distribution medium

[mainstreetmark]

...reflects the belief among mobile carriers that consumers will pay a premium to buy music while they are on the move...


Why do they have cause to believe this? Because suckers pay a buck for a ring or something?

I hate people. All of them.

[Eagon]

I hate people. All of them.

Me too

[SeaFox]

Comparisons, of course, are made with the Motorola ROKR iTunes capable phone. As previously reported, Apple does not offer over-the-air iTunes purchasing. Instead, requiring you to copy songs over from your PC or Mac.

The mobile carriers all have this shared dillusion that everyone wants to buy music on their phone. The first example they always pull out of their-- hat-- is of a customer hearing a song on the radio and immediately picking up their phone and buying it. Things rarely work like this in the real world. Look at the [lack of] popularity of mobile web browsing. People don't want to fiddle with the phone's keys with content on a screen that is mobile phone sized when it comes to buying music. Going through discographies and typing search terms with a keypad are pains few will want to partake in on a regular basis.

[PDubNYC]

People will buy one or two songs at that price for a ring tone, but not more than that. Some companies are a bit too greedy for their own good, hurting their brand name with smart consumers in the process.


I do not believe that you can set purchased songs as your ring tone. Which just makes this an even worse deal.

[JDOG_]

HAHAHAHAH $2.50/song.

Good luck with that guys.

That puts the cost comparison of an average album to:
~$35 on your phone to $10-18 in the store.
or $9.99 on iTunes. I wouldn't pay another $25 for "convienience."

[XNine]

This story is obviously a joke, guys. I mean, HIGH QUALITY? In WMA?! LMFAO There's no ******* way!

[Lertie32]

$2.50 ?!?!?!
:eek:
Whatever.

This is so stupid I can't imagine it being successful. :confused:
A) Too expensive
B) Too slow (cell phone download speeds suck)
C) Sound quality (audio out/speaker quality usually is mediocre on cell phones)
D) WHY?
E) Too expensive

Maybe... and I stretch in the interest of objectivity... maybe, somebody (like a previous poster) is traveling, bored in a conversation-less, mac-less, ipod-less environment, or some other occasional circumstance would download a few songs to stay sane. However, I think this is a rare occurrence these days.
:cool:

I've never seen much rationale for lots of different ring tones either. Plus Sprint charges you EACH MONTH (or they used to anyways) for any downloaded ringers. I knew it was a rip-off as soon as I found out about that. I wonder if this has any similar sneaky or repeat fees too.

This is a rip-off in terms of price AND practicality.

Dumb idea. Period.
:(

[Koodauw]

Why do they have cause to believe this? Because suckers pay a buck for a ring or something?

I hate people. All of them.


People pay $2 for a 30 second ring tone clip. I'm sure there is a market out there for this, but its not very big.

[macFanDave]

Don't bother - they're here.

Welcome to the House of Pain, Samsung and Sprint! You are not the first competitors that Apple hasn't chewed up and spit out and you won't be the last. But rest assured -- you will be chewed up and spit out.

Samsung, all that money Apple made you by including your memory in the nano will be blown on this ill-conceived adventure.

[Superdrive]

Give T-Mobile a nice iTunes style phone and I'll dump Sprint like a bad habit. After going through the Arial->VoiceStream->T-Mobile switch, and after two years, I figured Sprint would be the way to go. If they are going to price me out of the market at $2.50 a pop, I'll switch my number off them before they know it.

[Object-X]

Scraping for that 25%. :rolleyes:

Just another failed attempt. Why do they even bother? I guess they understand that even at 10% or 15%, it represents a huge profit potential. Of course, Apple will own the market but won't be sued for being a monopoly.

[eatmocrawfish]

The importance of download speeds is so over-rated! How long could it take to download a song at 14.4kbs? 5 minutes? 10 minutes? My cell phone service is so reliable that, like, there’s little chance my call would be dropped in the middle of a download. In the unlikely event that a song download is interrupted by a drop or important incoming call, a quick call to customer service would have my bill adjusted in a jiffy! Like everyone else, I replace my phone every 18 months – how difficult could it be to transfer my songs to the new phone? (It will probably be as easy as transferring my address book.) I’ll just die if I can’t download songs anytime, anywhere, no matter the cost………..

[iDM]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

The Korea Times reports (http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/biz/200510/kt2005103018433411890.htm) that Samsung is currently in talks with their partners to "debute a service program like iTunes of Apple. Our No. 1 priority is to help customers use our products with ease".

Ironically, Samsung is the company which is supplying Apple with the NAND Flash memory for the iPod nano (http://guides.macrumors.com/IPod_nano_(1G)).

Meanwhile, Sprint Nextel has launched (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9879430/) the first US music download service aimed at mobile phone users.

The Sprint Music Store enables Sprint customers to download songs for $2.50/each. Sprint has lined up 250,000 songs from all four major music labels. For $2.50, customers get both a lower-quality phone version as well as the high-quality (WMA) version for their PC.



Comparisons, of course, are made with the Motorola ROKR iTunes capable phone. As previously reported, Apple does not offer over-the-air iTunes purchasing. Instead, requiring you to copy songs over from your PC or Mac.

Nextel you make brick like ugly phones, your features are out of date, your service stinks, and now you are doing another bad business move doing this. People will not pay 2.50 for this service, you guys are nuts and are gonna lose a boat load in advertising this and frankly you deserve it. Yes i know it is the cool thing in urban areas for young adults to do the two-way walkie talkie, but that feature is blown way out of proportion for it's usefulness. The lame coverage areas, fugly phones and the two-way feature will not survive. Apart from business applications the two-way is an overpriced, lame feature and now this music store is gonna bomb. Good luck nextel you are definitely gonna need it.

[cbigfoot1987]

Especially with nextel you are allready shelling out $100 or more for service why or how could you afford $2.50/song what will a boxset like the u2 boxset cost 3 Million or 4 million???

Just get a life and forget about this sh** and go bankrupt all ready so cingular can buy you!!!

[Photorun]

This story is obviously a joke, guys. I mean, HIGH QUALITY? In WMA?! LMFAO There's no ******* way!

Indeed! WMA? Quality? What are these guys smoking?! I (sadly) just had to use that format for something (reluctantly) and am floored that Windoze lusers put up with such a craptacular format, then again, if people are using a peecee they're already pretty use to a pretty craptacular experience. Once in M$'s championing mediocrity spin cycle sheep will think being fed plate after plate of garbage is tasty.

[madmaxmedia]

Come on, WMA is not that bad. It's not as good as MS touts it to be (comparing against way-outdated mp3 codecs), but it's decent. In most really discriminating listening tests it comes out okay.

http://ff123.net/128tests.html

[kaylee]

The importance of download speeds is so over-rated! How long could it take to download a song at 14.4kbs? 5 minutes? 10 minutes? My cell phone service is so reliable that, like, there’s little chance my call would be dropped in the middle of a download. In the unlikely event that a song download is interrupted by a drop or important incoming call, a quick call to customer service would have my bill adjusted in a jiffy! Like everyone else, I replace my phone every 18 months – how difficult could it be to transfer my songs to the new phone? (It will probably be as easy as transferring my address book.) I’ll just die if I can’t download songs anytime, anywhere, no matter the cost………..



I think you've summed it up quite nicely there. Mobile companies should stop trying to just cram every possible technology into phones; instead put a bit of thought into what would actually work well, and make it easy to use.

[2A Batterie]

People moan over cds being priced at $18.99 An album on CD usually has 12 or more tracks on it, so why would consumers pay $30 or more for an album's worth of material? I understand that sonic quality isn't terribly important to consumers, but it still doesn't make sense to pay way more for a version that is of far lower quality (sonically speaking).

[JMGvtec03]

Thats about what they charge for thier crappy ringtones... And that seems to be a Billion dollar market. Im sure some poor (In this case rich) sap will buy but to me this is just a waste.

-JMG-

[savar]

The mobile carriers all have this shared dillusion that everyone wants to buy music on their phone.

Mobile carriers have many delusions. One is that the average customer doesn't mind spending $75/mo. on cell phone service and accessories. $5 per month for a detailed bill? $7 per month for unlimited SMS? $10 per month to upload grainy pictures to their server?

The worst part is, every time I call Sprint, they ask if I want to extend my contract. I always respond: what are you offering in return? There's a moment of silence before I begin my much-rehearsed tirade on how contracts are a huge inconvenience to customers, everybody hates them, and there's no incentive to renew a contract if you're not going to upgrade my phone or anything.

Downloading mobile music is also really stupid. It used to be that a ringtone was $.99, and I figured that was bearable because its a one-time charge. Now its something like $1.50 for 3 months! Video games are $3-5 per month! The whole situation is ludricous, and the worst part is that the US is two-three years behind the rest of the world in cell phone tech, which just adds insult to injury.

I HATE cell carriers, and that is no exaggeration.

[inkswamp]

Why do they even bother?

Because there's money involved.

This kind of thing just smacks of a room full of business people studying the market and figuring out what they can squeeze out of it--and not a single damned one of them giving a rip about the music itself.

When Apple unveiled iTMS and the iPod, you got a sense that the people behind these things really deeply cared about music and wanted to create something that would accommodate music lovers. Sure, Apple wants to make a profit, but you could tell that they really cared about creating a system for music lovers that was as close to perfect as they could get... including the price.

Everything else that has come along since has just felt like marketing exercises.

[Renegate]

Samsung today officially denied it has plans for a music store!