Apple’s iPod with satellite radio coming?

21 years ago

“Combine the iPod with satellite radio and what do you get? ‘The killer app,’ said Kit Spring, an analyst with Stifel, Nicolaus & Company. Spring isn’t the only one who thinks so,” Krysten Crawford writes for CNN/Money. “iPods and satellite radios are the hottest electronic gadgets on the market today. Consumers can buy their favorite songs using an iPod and they can listen to their favorite genre, be it classic rock or country, on subscription satellite radio. But they can’t do both on a single device. ‘The iPod is the biggest, baddest thing around and satellite radio is this small, cool device,’ said Steve Mather, an analyst with Sander Morris Harris. ‘Put them together and it’s the ultimate.'”

Crawford writes, “There’s no evidence that such a dream machine is in the works. Earlier this year, Sirius Satellite Radio CEO Mel Karmazin said he had approached Steve Jobs, the chief of iPod maker Apple Computer, about a possible deal but said Jobs wasn’t interested… At least one analyst thinks Apple (Research), which has sold millions of iPods, is an active participant notwithstanding its public indifference. ‘There’s got to be a ceiling on the size of the iPod market so Apple clearly has to be thinking about its next step,’ said Aram Sinnreich, a music industry researcher at the University of Southern California.”

“Apple would probably demand a hefty upfront fee in exchange for an exclusive deal with either XM Satellite or Sirius. Apple could also seek a share of satellite subscription revenues, a painful stipulation given that XM Satellite and Sirius need to recoup every dollar they can given the billions spent on talent and technology so far,” Crawford writes. “Stifel Nicolaus analyst Spring thinks something else is holding back a deal: Apple, he said, is developing its own subscription music service similar to what Sirius and XM Satellite offer. Under that plan, explains Spring, iPod users could download and essentially rent a play list of, say, 600 classic rock songs. The service would be similar to Napster’s monthly $14.95 subscription plan. Apple claims it isn’t developing a subscription service, but Spring says he’s not buying the denials. A subscription service, while not radio per se, ‘will make the iPod more of a substitute for satellite radio,’ said Spring.”

Full article here.