Just recently, the Germany mobile telephone operator T-Mobile along with O2 from Britain showed off their iTunes based phones at Berlin's IFA electronics show. Now, there are ruours about Apple and Motorola planning to unveil their new iTunes phone along with various other new products on September 7th. Analysts believe that Motorola's iTunes phone will function similar to Apple's iPod and is likely to come in two capacities - 512MB and 1GB.
Just when people may think they can replace their iPod and phone with this iTunes phone, there is still the debate of whether music can be transferred from the PC or will have to be purchased through their operator's network to the phone. Also, a recent survey even revealed that out of a survey of 600 people, only 8% were interested in buying an MP3 enabled phone. The expected launch times for these phones will be by the year-end for T-Mobile's Motorola iTunes phone and within the next week for O2's iTunes software.
European mobile phone network operators expect mobile phone based music services to do very well, especially with how well iTunes in Europe is doing with its music download service. Analysts also believe that Apple will start offering larger capacity versions of its iPod Shuffle's and that the iPod Mini series will change over to flash memory.
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Analysts believe that the iTunes phone from Motorola nicknamed 'Rokr" will offer roughly similar music playing as Apple's iPod, and is likely to be the first in a series of many such phones made by Motorola. As per Ovum's Roger Entner the 'Rokr" range is likely to offer two models with either 512MB or 1GB of storage capable of storing upto 8 hours of music. However there remain questions as to whether the device would permit download of music via wireless services like 3G or whether they will necessitate connection with a computer. They also opine that the capacity of iPod Shuffles will get bigger, while the iPod mini will switch to flash-based memory. The full article can be read here. |
As mobile ring-tone sales are selling extremely well despite how expensive they cost, in my opinion, over the air music sales will probably do the same, especially if the consumer can pay for the music on their next phone bill or from their remaining credit for pay-as-you-go customers. On the other hand, it will be interesting to see if music can be transferred from a PC to the phone or vice versa, especially when it comes to upgrading to a new handset later on down the line to avoid losing purchased music.
If the iTunes based phones do turn out to be a big success, it will be interesting to see how the music industry reacts. They may see download sales rise, but if this means lower sales from shops, they are likely going to find something to put blame for falling CD sales against!
Source: EARTHtimes.org
