Steve Jobs on iTunes Phone and Carriers

[MacRumors]

AlwaysOn posts a transcript of an interview with Steve Jobs from this year's D: All Things Digital conference.

The transcript provides insights from Steve Jobs about his opinion of the current cell phone market and Apple's positioning.

Of note, the first generation of Motorola iTunes enabled phones will simply provide an iTunes music player interface and allow you to transfer songs from your Mac or PC. The iTunes music store will not be directly available on the phone itself, so songs can not be purchased wirelessly. Jobs notes, "Maybe we'll do some over the air stuff later, but we don't think that that's going to be where the action is."

Jobs goes on to criticize wireless carrier's current plans to charge $2-$3/song on their own music networks and doesn't think it will work:

Well, it's going to be a lousy buying experience, and the music is going to cost two to three times as much as if you buy it on your computer. It's hard to imagine that customers are that stupid.

When questioned about the lifespan of the iPod and why the functionality won't eventually move into the call phone, Jobs answers, "I'm going to leave the answer to our actions in the future"

An earlier transcript interview of Steve Jobs details reasons he feels a Video iPod would not work.

 

[zv470]

No suprises here, I don't think people would buy music through their phone directly. I certainly wouldn't.

 

[Techobo]

Im fine with my 10g iPod. Ill get a new one when its a phone and a movie player lol.

 

[iDM]

Very interesting why does Steve have to be so damn vague?

 

[firsttube]

woot woot

I think cell phones will eventually replace ipods, but not anytime soon.


-Phil

 

[Applespider]

I wouldn't pay £2-3 to buy a song via my phone but don't underestimate the general public.

Remember, there are people around the world happy to pay £3 for a 30 second ringtone! Why they don't just buy the single on iTMS and Bluetooth it to their phone I've neer quite worked out.

 

[kepleri]

The comment count

It's interesting that while there are seven (eight) posts the website only counts 4.

 

[Object-X]

Sounds like

Sounds like Jobs has been taking the phone companies to task over their intention to sell music at two to three times the iTunes store. I think Jobs is right, why would anyone spend $3 to download a song on your phone? I wouldn't. I might like to get rid of my iPod on my belt and have the player capabilities integrated into my phone, but I wouldn't want to use the phone to purchase music; I wouldn't even want to use the iPod to purchase music if it were avaibable. It would be much too diffecult to browse and search for stuff.

 

[M@netic]

still don't get it

the great thing about the iPod is that you can carry your whole music collection with you. A phone will not have much memory, so I don't see the advantage of having an "iPod phone." Aren't there already phones that play music?

 

[autrefois]

Jobs goes on to criticize wireless carrier's current plans to charge $2-$3/song on their own music networks and doesn't think it will work:

Well, it's going to be a lousy buying experience, and the music is going to cost two to three times as much as if you buy it on your computer. It's hard to imagine that customers are that stupid.

I think this explains what's been taking them so long to release this phone. Based on his tone, Steve sounds like he's been trying (in vain) to convince wireless carriers not to rip off their customers. Paying two or three times the price to have a less user-friendly experience does sound like a pretty bad deal.

He doesn't directly come out and say the other carriers want to use iTunes to rip off their customers, but it's obvious that's what he thinks. I'm glad that he's willing to stand up for users, although I'm sure part of it is not wanting to besmirch the iTunes name with something hard to use and way overpriced.

 

[technocoy]

or maybe...

iPods will eventually replace cell phones.... ponder that one...

I think that the thing we alway say about apple is that they always do what right what others can't. so right now, there is no GOOD convergeance device. maybe thats what apple will do right in the coming years. and then we will al be like "why aren't all convergeance devices this easy to operate? it's like apple just 'gets it'".

he he he

 

[CubaTBird]

just what if their is no itunes phone... its all a fluke.. to create stir and interest in some other product.. APPLE CONSPIRACY

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

When questioned about the lifespan of the iPod and why the functionality won't eventually move into the call phone, Jobs answers, "I'm going to leave the answer to our actions in the future"

I'm actually getting my hopes up for the possibility of a true iPhone, where Apple actually designs the phone, and equally important, it's UI.

I would love an iPhone, syncing flawlessly with iCal and Address Book, maybe even with a Safari and Mail mobile to access the web from the phone, and an easy solution for using the phone with your laptop to go online (wirelessly) anywhere. If it had the 512 MB - 1 GB flash memory and iTunes capability that would be nice (I would still use my iPod mini for music playback, though, nor use a camera, for more than the odd novelty shot, but if that's what the public want...)

 

[ShavenYak]

I wouldn't pay £2-3 to buy a song via my phone but don't underestimate the general public.

Remember, there are people around the world happy to pay £3 for a 30 second ringtone! Why they don't just buy the single on iTMS and Bluetooth it to their phone I've neer quite worked out.

Well, here in the U.S. that would be illegal, because they'd have to circumvent the DRM on the purchased song before their phone would play it. They could burn it to CD and rip it, or rip the song from a commercially available CD, of course... but then they run into the problem that 95% of the phones here don't have Bluetooth, and most of those that do have been crippled by the (greedy b****rd) wireless carriers so they can't receive ringtones. You might also consider that a large number of Americans are technophobic enough to never figure out how to do it even if the hardware would let them.

 

[wdlove]

My wife's cell phone service will be up soon. She's interested to see what Steve will be offering in the way of connectivity with a phone, the music would just be a bonus.

 

[applecrag]

so will we be able to use the songs on the phone as a ringtone? that would be cool instead of using those 30 second previews...

 

[wnurse]

I wouldn't pay £2-3 to buy a song via my phone but don't underestimate the general public.

Remember, there are people around the world happy to pay £3 for a 30 second ringtone! Why they don't just buy the single on iTMS and Bluetooth it to their phone I've neer quite worked out.

I agree ring tones are too expensive but a song is not a ringtone. Just saying that people should buy songs from itunes and bluetooth it to their phones shows a lack of understanding of ringtones. A ringtone is a snippet of a song and for a good reason. Why would you want to store an entire song as a ringtone?. Will you listen to the entire song before answering the phone?. Even if phone memory increases, why would you dedicate so much storage to an entire song as a ringtone when you can better use that storage to store your pictures, voice memos, etc?.
Also some phones require the ringtone to be in specific format. I gurantee whatever music you purchase from itunes is not in this format.

I suppose you can always buy/acquire an application that would take a song and convert a snippet of it to a ringtone.. but not everyone is computer savy.


Last week, i helped a woman buy a computer to run an application she wanted to run.. very old application. She called me up and complained that she could not find any computer that ran the app. When i asked why?.. she was like
"the application says i need windows 98, 64 mb of RAM, etc etc".. then she said "all the computers i looked at said Windows XP, 512MB of ram"..
It took a monumental effort not to burst out laughing but she thought because the computer specs did not exactly match the minimum requirements of the app, that the computer could not run the app. Now, are you asking this same person to bluetooth a song to her phone?. Heck, i've never done it myself (although i could if i wanted to.. i'm sure it's not that difficult for a person of my technical ability to figure out.. besides, there are many websites with free ringtones.. i hook my phone to my computer and download that way)
I digress but you are asking a significant portion of the population that is not tech savy to do something that requires tech savy.


BTW Jobs, I guess people are really stupid. They have been buying ringtones for a long time. Instead of calling potential customers stupid, why don't you get of your arse and provide an easy way for them to get ringtones for 99c?
I'm talking about the folks that will not want an itunes phone. How about all the other folks with regular phones.. some that are not bluetooth enabled?.

 

[ShavenYak]

I'm actually getting my hopes up for the possibility of a true iPhone, where Apple actually designs the phone, and equally important, it's UI.

I think Apple would be more likely to produce a mobile device with music, video, photo browsing capability, a camera, web browser, email, address book, and calendar. Perhaps with a touchscreen, or handwriting recognition. Not a new Newton, but an evolution of the iPod. It would of course iSync flawlessly - or perhaps it would even regularly sync up with .Mac, so you wouldn't have to connect it with your PC unless you wanted to transfer music or video. Most likely it would have Bluetooth and talk to your existing cellphone to go online; perhaps it would have Airport as well to hook-up at hotspots.

 

[DTphonehome]

Ha!

A big "I told you so" to everyone who ragged on me when I said whoop-de-do to a crappy motorola cell phone that can play itunes files. "But you'll be able to BUY songs over the air!" they said. Ha. No you won't. Just like I said. Not this time, at least. The carriers will never allow it. iTunes will directly compete with their overpriced services.

 

[Dr. Dastardly]

There will be no way that carriers will ever let you buy a song on your cell phone for only a dollar. Steve's right, you would have to be a glutton for punishment if you want to try to navigate the music store via cell phone and then pay three times as much for a stupid song. There will be a handful of people that will do this once or twice becuase no doubt they will think its the only way they can put music on their phone.

In other news, can this phone die already! I think it qualifies as vaporware after 6 or 7 months with no results to show.

 

[DTphonehome]

one more thing...

To everyone advocating simply bluetoothing files over...

Verizon (and possibly other carriers, I don't know) cripples bluetooth on all their phones so that you can't transfer files over. They make you message your pics, for a fee of course. The carriers WILL block anything that doesn't fit into their business model or competes with their revenue stream.

 

[Abstract]

Very interesting why does Steve have to be so damn vague?

He's not being vague at all. He tells us what he thinks won't work, and I'm pretty sure he's not going to want to release any of the things he thinks are bad ideas.

 

[joeboy_45101]

Putting video playback on an iPod, in my opinion, would be just utterly useless. Who would WANT to actually try to watch a full motion picture on an 2 in. low-resolution iPod screen. My God your eyes couldn't take it for very long.

I think the real drive behind people wanting iPod's with video is that it would bring us one step closer to an Apple PDA. I'm not saying that the iPod is or should be a PDA, but when is enough actually enough. The current line of iPods are damn fine little machines with buttloads of neat features.

Although, if Apple was going to provide video playback then I think that it would somehow tie-in to the Music Store. Like being able to play music videos back on the iPod. I think that would work, since music videos are relatively short and you don't necessarily have to pay much attention to know what is going on.

 

[Jesus]

Clever clever steve, he can say the word and can expect the mac community to read into his words, misteriousness is excellent when you run the most interesting computer company in the world. Stevie, the ultimate showman.

Jesus

 

[0098386]

the public paying £2-3 on songs? likely. this is the same group of people who would spend MORE on a watered-down PS2 game than its cheaper and better console alternative just because its (quote) bleeding edge. its the same thing pretty much.

so. you cant buy songs via the phone? so whats the point in this iTunes phone? a 32-64mb MP3 player? that does nothing more than the MP3 player phones coming out half a decade ago? and with all these delays and hype building. im sensing a massive flop.