“The NY Times reviews the new music store from Sprint. So let’s see if I get this right. It’s $2.50 a song (more than double the price of PC based services), lower quality (seems about FM radio level based on the compression cited) and can’t be used on an iPod. Of course I also need to buy a new phone and a memory card of least 512mb or so for this to be useful. Battery life is about seven hours as long as I don’t want to make a phone call (who’d want to do that on phone anyway?). Can’t use the songs as ringtones either (but that’s not a shock, ringtones have different license terms). Makes you wonder whether these folks have been living totally isolated from the rest of the world over the last few years or if they just think consumers are so desperate to purchase music on the fly and only want to carry to one device with limited functions,” Michael Gartenberg writes in his Jupiterresearch Blog.
“The real fun will come with the spin when this flops,” Gartenberg writes.
Full article here.
The New York Times piece to which Gartenberg refers was penned by David Pogue who writes, in part, “Unless they’ve just spent four years in a sensory-deprivation tank, surely Sprint’s executives know that the iTunes Music Store and its rivals have solidly established the sweet spot of customer acceptance at $1 a song. What makes Sprint think it can charge two and a half times as much and still make people happy? ‘It’s a new market, the first service of its kind, serving a different type of customer,’ Jackie Bostick, a Sprint spokeswoman, said. ‘We are not necessarily going after people who are downloading tons of music online.’ (Translation: ‘Please don’t bring up the iTunes thing.’) Online, the overwhelming reaction to Sprint’s pricing is disgust and sarcasm.”
Full article here.
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Related article:
Cingular slashes Motorola ROKR iTunes phone price – November 09, 2005
Motorola SLVR mobile phone with Apple iTunes – November 09, 2005
Motorola unveils RAZR V3i Apple iTunes-capable mobile phone – November 08, 2005
“Online, the overwhelming reaction to Sprint’s pricing is disgust and sarcasm.”
Surprise, surprise…
MaWo: ‘wrong’. As in, “That’s what Sprint’s thinking is…”
C’mon, Really people.
Wow, Laughable doesn’t even come close here.
Oh wait!
THAT’S the FAKE story!
Wahdda I win?
I hate going first
well, I prefer Cola
Maybe SONY’ll give ’em some free titles, seeing as they’ll be having troubles with their label.
These people can’t fish … have no concept of “bait.” Deluded by fools [new-users stuck in a fad] who’ve paid for monthly subscriptions for overpriced, poor-sounding ringtones, they’ve tied a piranha to the end of their line instead of a juicy prawn.
Prediction: (1)_Ringtones will be free. (2)_Phones that allow you to upload your paid-for-already music directly will become the norm in the bloatphone segment. In the meantime … (3)_You’ll get some hits because there’s no shortage of stupid people, but it won’t be worth it.
I love the comment ” ‘We are not necessarily going after people who are downloading tons of music online.’ (Translation: ‘Please don’t bring up the iTunes thing.’) Online, the overwhelming reaction to Sprint’s pricing is disgust and sarcasm.” heh heh heh!
OH Man,
What a joke.
Sprint is that lame?
First thing you have to be connected to download and eveybody knows that sprint good for that. (BIG SMILE) Let’s see I’m going to download the new song from that fake thug 50 cent. Oh wait it’s downloading, OH MAN I was just disconnected a another drop call. Well I just lost $2.50. Let me be a sucker again. FUCK another drop and another and again. Do you see a patten here . Sprint is making money while you the sucker go broke.
Like my MDN Magic Word REMEMBER you are downloading over air waves. No true connection like cable or phone line even that not good at times , but lot better chance getting what I pay for. Oh man another drop connection. I got go. I stick with ITunes and IPod
Gosh I hope Sprint doesn’t know something we and Apple don’t know, like popular iTMS songs going for $2.50?
Good thing I got a ton of great music and can get more from the Russians if iTMS fails us.
Dam greedy RIAA and SONY Labels.
MDN Word: “cut” Like Sprint’s $2.50 a song service just don’t cut it.
Why bother at $2.50 a song. Oh and you can’t use the phone if you want only 7 hours of battery life? What’s the use? The iTunes thing is much better sprint. And most real phones these days can play mp3’s as ringtones too. This is a total rip off from the very beginning. It makes motorola’s iTunes phone look really good compared to this ripoff.
this is Mac news ?
Don’t forget, besides the 2.50, there are airtime charges too. The actual cost, depending on the plan could be higher.
Sprint’s gonna bring in tons of cash on this. People are incredibly stupid. Just look at all those Windows users.
I can’t believe these exec’s are making more money than me with these marketing ploys…..
UGH!
While the plan is idiotic to anyone with a lick of sense, ya gotta look at this from Sprint’s point of view.
People have purchased billions of dollars of ringtones for $2 a pop. Sprint is thinking that if people will pay $2 for 20 seconds, then an extra 50 cents for the entire song is quite a bargain!
Hard to fault their logic; we’ll just have to see how many people are swayed by it.
keep in mind that if you don’t subscribe to sprint’s data package, then you also have to pay for the data download for a song.
that’s $2.50 plus another $15 to $20 …..
insane huh? how many impulse buys do they think they’ll get?
i saw this info in a few different places when it was first announced, but now i only see it at the chronicle …
http://tinyurl.com/bsssa