“After the successful launch of Apple’s iPhone, AT&T is readying a new wireless service which would allow its customers to download music from eMusic on their mobile phones,” Max Brenn reports for eFluxMedia.
“AT&T’s fee per song of $1.50 is below Verizon’s $1.99 but higher than Sprint’s, which is $0.99,” Brenn reports.
MacDailyNews Note: AT&T customers can subscribe to download five tracks a month for $7.49, with additional packages of five songs available for the same price.
“Bad news though: the craved gadget that has shaken the entire telecom industry, aka the iPhone, will not work with the new services, despite having an iPod incorporated in it,” Brenn reports. “Handsets from Samsung or Nokia however will be compatible.”
“AT&T said eMusic would allow customers to preview selections before they commit to a purchase. As with rival services, users can download a copy of each song purchased to their computer at no extra charge,” Brenn reports.
Full article here.
AT&T’s press release is here.
The Norwegians are holding on line 4. They demand that all eFluxMedia’s files interoperate with all cell phones from all providers, all car stereos, and all major appliances.
ATT has to have all their bases covered… but this goes in the “who cares” category of my news stories
I don’t understand why anyone would do this unless they didn’t have a computer. I’ve subscribed to eMusic for some time now and I get 40 songs a month for $15. This AT&T deal seems rather foolish.
– Apple will not let iTunes work with crappie devices, and dilute the experience.
– ATT will not allow iTunes Mobile to work over their EDGE network, scrubbing away their cash cow, rake the consumer dry eMusic service (which blows btw).
Thus ATT delivers a crappy service that won’t work on the iPhone (thank goodness), and Apple does not get iTunes Mobile.
This is all going to change. Apple will deliver iTunes Mobile by 2008, with or without EDGE or 3G, and will simply launch it via wifi locations. ATT would be smart to let iTunes work over 3G or EDGE as well, as it would help continue to give their network some value. If not, they shoot themselves in the foot. People will find wifi the big deal, and EDGE and 3G more and more irrelevant.
Dumb is as dumb does.
Of all the annoying topic-threads I have experienced in the last few years, this “purchasing music from a mobile device” is certainly one of the most irritating.
Personally, I cannot imagine a situation where one would absolutely need to download a track to a mobile device. I mean c’mon, really. You hear a tune you like and will shrivel and die before you get back to your computer? What did these people do before there was downloadable music? You hear a tune you like – do you drop everything you are doing and hightail it to a record store to buy it? Or do you take note of it and buy it the next time you are near a record store. What if you hear this must have song outside store hours? Do you have a panic attack because the stores are closed? And please don’t give that “I don’t always have my computer with me, but I do have my mobile device” crap. Most people don’t leave home without their laptop for long periods of time, and if they do, they are the types that want to take a break from this digital world, in which case it makes no sense that they spend their precious time away from their computer with their mobile device stuck to their ear, bitching about having to wait a day or two or a week to buy that amazing tune they just heard.
Of all the features mobile devices could possibly have, being able to download a song is, in my personal and humble opinion, dead last on that list!
MDN word “reached” as in I have reached the end of my patience with mobile device owners who have zero patience!
surprised no ones mention this littler wonder… The Motorola ROKR E1 (pronounced “rocker”, IPA:/ɹɔkə(ɹ)/) is the first mobile phone to be integrated with Apple Inc.’s iTunes music player. It was launched on September 7, 2005 during a special media-only event by Apple in San Francisco, California. The phone had been widely expected, with technology sites reporting on collaborations between Motorola and Apple as far back as December 2004. Apple has since decided to stop supporting the ROKR and therefore users can no longer listen to new downloads as of September 12, 2006, thereby effectively making the phone a “one-year-wonder” and rendering it obsolete. from Wikipedia [citation needed}
WHY…….?????????
The Wikipedia article is pretty inaccurate. I had the ROKR E1 with iTunes. I got it on day 1. You never could download directly to the phone. Apple never stopped support for it. You can transfer music from iTunes now just as you always have been. While the ROKR E1 was somewhat of a failure, it actually wasn’t that bad of a product. I rather liked mine at the time. It still is the best speaker phone I ever had and the battery life was shockingly lengthy.
After the ROKR E1, there was the E2 which was pretty much the same, but much thinner. The speaker wasn’t as robust and the battery life was horrible. There were some minor advantages though over the E1, though all the Motorola phones with iTunes suffered from the same major flaw of only allowing 100 songs regardless of how big of a card you have.
The last Motorola phone with iTunes to be release was the RAZR V3i. I also have this phone. The speaker isn’t as good as the E1 was, but the battery was almost as good, and it was a nicer form factor than the E1 or E2 candy bar designs.
All three Motorola phones with iTunes still function today as they originally did. And while they suck compared to my iPhone, they were, at the time, pretty decent phones.
Let’s see now… for a subscription of $7.49 per month I get to download 5 (that’s five, folks…) songs from eMusic? Sounds like one hell of a deal. Since I now already get 65 songs a month for $19.99, or $0.30 each in high bitrate non-DRM mp3s, I think I’ll have to jump on this “deal.” Just think… I can actually download those five songs to my phone (once I buy whichever model it works with, and switch to AT&T) while I’m driving down the freeway – what a concept. Makes speedy downloads via wifi and my laptop a thing of the past. What will they think of next?? That seals the deal for me. No iPhone in this boy’s future, cause it ain’t got that thang…!