“Reports that wireless carrier Cingular will team up with Napster and Yahoo! go a long way to suggest it doesn’t plan to work with Apple on its music phone offering,” Katie Dean reports for TheStreet.com.
Dean reports, “But rather than turn up the competitive heat on Apple, the move by Cingular, which is jointly owned by AT&T and BellSouth, could turn out to be a plus for the digital music king.”
“ThinkEquity analyst Jonathan Hoopes suggests that Apple might opt with its upcoming iPhone to become a ‘mobile virtual network operator,’ which could be a better deal,” Dean reports. “MVNOs, as they’re called, don’t own their own spectrum but enter into deals with carriers to use spectrum for their own brand-named services. Virgin Mobile, for one, is an MVNO.”
“And it might make sense for Apple to forge ahead on its own, Hoopes says. ‘If Apple just makes a phone and sells it, the carrier gets the recurring revenue of songs and data,’ he says. ‘If they make the phone and deliver [it] in a MVNO, then they can potentially tap into a recurring revenue stream,'” Dean reports.
Full article here.
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Clearly Cingular underestimates the Apple brand loyalty. If Apple goes MVNO, so do I, and I’ll cancel my 10 year old contract with Cingular/AT&T.
Soon we will hear how the theory of relativity was in fact invented for the iPhone. Everyone seems hell bent on twisting everything that happens lately as evidence for the existence of the mythincal iPhone.
I say it doesnt exist.
only reason i dont like the sound of that is that itll take ages for a UK release 🙁 but then i could import the phone and unlock it i suppose
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I don’t see Apple doing this… no postpaid/contract MVNO has worked. Ever.
Prepaid MVNOs like Virgin Mobile (a joint venture between the Virgin Group and Sprint Nextel) and Tracfone (which uses Cingular’s network) have done very good, but people don’t expect much with those.
Almost every MVNO that requires a contract have either failed (remember ESPN Mobile, anyone?) or aren’t doing that good (Helio, Disney Mobile). Apple doesn’t want a failure to happen. Amp’d Mobile is a hybrid model (prepaid and postpaid services are available), and it’s doing well, but it’s a very un-Apple model.
Personally, I expect Apple to team up with T-Mobile USA, as they plan on launching a new 3G/UMTS network next year, with most of the country covered by the end of 2007. Also, T-Mobile’s CEO has commented on how Apple is so innovative and how Leopard will change the OS world… soulds like a deal is in the works.
MDN MW: “island”; as in “you have to be stranded on a desert island to think that an Apple MVNO would work”
It may be better for Apple to go that route, because if the iPhone and it’s associated business is a success, Apple could spread the service to any of the major carriers that want it.
FWIW, I myself, would not be interested in a phone until the song capacity matches close to my library (~2-3K songs). I already have a shuffle, nano and 3G ipod. But for others, it could be their first iPod.
rsbell – I’m right with you. Our service contract ended years ago so there isn’t anything holding my wife and I back from making the switch.
Peace.
Boy do I need a simple phone . . . . please apple get me out of this multi button, crap interface, useless functions nightmare.
The easiest route would be for Apple to sell an unlocked, unsubsidised iPhone and people could BYO SIM card. It would still dominate the market.
Yes John the iPhone does not exist.. and neither does the sun.
Good points about the MVNOs if Apple wanted to go that route. I do not think it makes much sense for Apple to do it for those reasons, but also because they do not have any other revenue streams connected to the iPhone for an Apple MVNO to make sense. Songs from iTunes? Sure, but those are already being distributed and it makes much more sense to buy via computer, then sync with phone. Portable device -> computer transfer would be a change that the RIAA would make the RIAA crap in their pants.
I do hope Apple does a phone, because I suspect it will be quality hardware, have beautiful and functional design, and I hope it will be similar an iPod in terms of integration with iTunes – audio, photo, and addresses. Yeah, I can sync my phone now, but the ease of use if Microsoftian.
Okay, I just went with Cingular from Verizon; if Apple goes with something else, that’s where I will go for cell service (after this contract expires; should give time for any bugs to be worked out). No body knows just what will happen with the iPhone except Steve Jobs et al, but I am sure that if/when they do a cell phone and/or service, it will be right.
Making comparisons with other MVNOs is likely to be very misleading as I think that Apple will be offering a service quite unlike any existing one.
Don’t forget that before Apple made the iPod, nobody sold an MP3 player in large quantities. Before Apple started iTMS, nobody made money from selling music downloads ( even to this day, nobody else has managed to do that ). Before Apple introduced Apple stores, all the pundits predicted they would be a failure.
Apple doesn’t just copy existing models. They usually bring something original to the idea, pay immense attention to the details and Apple never forget that it’s important that the customer should feel that they are getting what they want.
It’s far too soon to suggest that Apple can’t make a success of a service of this type. They haven’t made any announcement on the subject and no details are available. I’ll certainly be waiting to see what they actually propose before jumping to any conclusions.
The iphone would do better to with an existing carrier, that carrier will help with the burden of logistics, such as distribution and tech support and sales. Going it alone with just one or two models as your phone options does not make sense. Also, it really does not chane things that cingular is settin up with napster, iphone would not be the only phone that cingular sells and so their is no reason that they cant offer multiple services.
I agree with Connor Macbook. I’m hoping the phone is released as an unlocked phone. I’m with T-Mobile and I appreciate their great customer service. Not to knock the prospects that any Apple MVNO service wouldn’t be great as they already have great service with their products & services.
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Agree with AlanAudio.
Apple model seems to be “If I was a consumer what would I want…” where as all the other companies seem to be more interested in squeezing every cent out of us.
Let’s hope the iPhone isn’t a myth.
iPhone WILL DEFINATELY be MVNO!!
If and when Apple comes out with a cell phone, it will be in the form of an MVNO. This is the only way Apple does business. As an MVNO Apple can control the whole widget. They aren’t in ANY position to put out a cell phone in competition with Samsung/Moto/LG/Kyocera/etc. That market is FULL.
As an MVNO Apple can have its phone the way it wants it and have its service the way it wants it and have integration with OS X the way it wants it.
Oh, and for the uninformed, it will NOT be prepaid. It will be the same post pay monthly bills as we are all used to. One can only guess as to the price and plan Apple will provide, but it wont be the prepaid throwaway phones as some suggest.
This is the last time i am going to post on this topic as it has become monotonous.
The ONLY thing left to see is the phone itself, and what functionality it will have.
There WILL be an Apple brand phone, Apple Mobile WILL be an MVNO, the iPhone will be tight with OS X and iTunes (possibly even pay your cell bill through .Mac)
The End
However Apple do it, whether through existing networks or as an MVNO, I hope they completely shake up what is so wrong with the mobile phone markets:
1) Networks kcuf the availability of good quality content by tieing the content to what they think they can make money from. If they could be less greedy and accept their share for data transfer from a more open information pool, they would prosper. Vertical integration only works if you get it right. I hope Apple doesn’t sell out its integrity just to get subsidized handsets.
2) Decent UI. I have yet to come across a mobile phone which lets me do with 6 pushes what I should be able to do with 3 (or less).
3) User defined features. Some of us want games, or photos, or whatever. Some of us want larger memories for SMS messages or phone books. It’s not hard to do, if we have proper…
4) Mac – phone interaction. Automatically download photos via Image Capture. Syncing with Mail and Ical. Sync Options with Address Book – just because I delete someone from my mobile phone doesn’t mean I want to delete them from Address Book. So let me allocate my phone’s memory according to how I’ll use it.
And these are just common mobile functions. Features such as VOIP, automatic switching to Wi-Fi etc give apple plenty of room to innovate.
Because the mobile phone market is so in need of innovation. Arguments that applew shouldn’t go there because its a saturated market forget the fact that the market stinks.
But, if apple do go there, they’ve got to get it right.
The problem is, many consumers are unhappy their cellphone provider. And if one provider is liked in one part of the country it may well be disliked in another due to variation sin the quality of the network. If Apple teams up the Phone will be viewed by the consumer as a quality control issue when the fact is it’s the network provider that Apple can’t do anything about, but Apple will take a reputation hit.
Apple need to consider very carefully how it does this
Cingular sucks, always has.
I can’t see any carrier not wanting to do business with Apple, or any cell phone manufacturer for that matter,that could bring customers to them.
Although carriers may be able to make a small amount on downloads, the bulk of income is from phone contracts. What little they make off music from their own “store” would not be enough to offset the huge customer base they would receive from a “perfect” phone.
Now, what would Apple gain from this? Much less overhead than an MVNO, the ability to sell iTunes through the computer to the phone if not directly to it, and more exposure to its OSX way of doing things, leading many, I would think, to the Apple Store to get more “perfect” stuff.
And as far as control, Apple doesn’t run the internet, and my iMac does just fine. I have no clue how they could guarantee service in THEIR name when they are buying the bandwidth from OTHERS that can’t even guarantee it in for their own customers.
If Apple goes MVNO, I’ll cancel my Verizon account the same day.
We often discuss the debate of buying a rev. A Intel Mac or the first offering of any given model.
This is an entirely new product for Apple. They have never (AFAIK) built a cell phone. This is the Rev. A to beat all Rev. A’s
Will you be on board from the word go???????
or will you conveniently wait for your current contract to expire before jumping in???