Posted in
Tech on 02/10/2008
Phones come cheap because the price of the unit is subsidized by the telco (they make up with the monthly plans). In the same light, digital music will now come free (hopefully!) because the cost will be subsidized by the price of the phone.
Reuters has an interestingly new article on the Nokia’s new Comes with Music offering (apart from their new touch screen phone):
I heard about Nokia’s Comes with Music plans during a dinner meet up with some of the online tech media a few months ago. Not a lot of details were released but the plan to go for a subscription-based model isn’t new. It just hasn’t been implemented on a wide scale yet (the only guys I know doing this is the Microsoft Zune online community for a price of a CD a month - unlimited song downloads!).
Nokia’s package will differ from others on the market as users can keep all the music they have downloaded during the 12 month subscription period. There are no charges for tracks downloaded, since the cost is bundled to the phone price.
“‘Comes with Music’ could potentially bring free music to millions of consumers, radically changing the music industry, and offering a significant threat to Apple’s dominance,” Strategy Analytics’ David MacQueen said in a research report.
“In a market where price and selection are so much more important than brand to consumers, Apple cannot count on retaining users when competing with an offering which seems free to the end user,” MacQueen said.
I think it’s come to that point where everyone in the market already has a phone, and changing mobiles every 3 months is turning to be a logistical nightmare. So even if Nokia has still been steady with the phones, entering these new avenues (games, music, maps, photo sharing) via Ovi will definitely peak interest.
What I really want to say is filled with irony: The key to keeping your customers is to not make anything exclusive. This isn’t the 1970’s anymore. Great job to Nokia for going pro-consumer!
So along with the hot iPods, iTunes released the new Genius feature for iTunes 8.0 that does two things. First, the new version allows you to make on-the-fly playlists based on one song that you choose. The choice is heavily dependent on the genre, artist and I even think it has something to do with the cadence of the song. iTunes chooses similar beat counts for that playlist.
The second part of Genius is the iTunes recommendations sidebar, which is their monetization model. When you’re playing songs, iTunes can recommend songs from their library which you can click to purchase. It isn’t available in the Philippines, sadly (see first image).
The Genius concept is not new. Online services such as Last.FM and Pandora have implemented this related playlist scheme for quite some time. Of course, sometimes you get really off recommendations.
I tried a few playlist creations based on KENNY LOGGINS, JAMIROQUAI and RICK ASTLEY and got pretty good results (hmm there are one or two out of place songs, but hey, sometimes Geniuses make mistakes too!). The first song in the 25 song countdown is where all the songs are based from.
Share your Genius Playlist Mix? 
P.S. And yes, I listen to BARRY MANILOW, OK? Mandy, FTW.
The rumors are true - the 4th generation iPod nanos are out. Apple has gone back to the roots of the nano, foregoing the fatty design for the gum stick form factor of the 1st and 2nd generation + the curved edges. And they’ve upped the memory too at 8GB and 16GB. Sigh. Flash memory just gets cheaper and cheaper. Every year, a new iPod owner gets at least twice the memory for the same price. It goes the same for all tech gadgets.
They did a great job with the colors - these aren’t the typical shades you’d find in your everyday gadget. According to Technograph, the rumored pricing is P12,000.00 for the 16GB version.
Apple, where’s the FM tuner?
Posted in
Tech on 10/06/2008
The second coming of the Jesus Phone is nigh. Just moments ago, Steve unveiled the iPhone 3G at the WWDC 2008 conference. I managed to do a Live Plurk of the event. You can click the link to see my comments and some responses. I also have an initial post up at Cellphone9 for the coverage. Nothing fancy. More of a first impressions look. As a follow up I also wrote a piece on what a $199.00 iPhone does to the cellphone industry.
With Windows Mobile devices costing in the close $600.00 and above, what happens when the world’s most talked about phone get a huge price cut by half? What happens when the world’s most talked about phone acquires Microsoft ActiveSync and Exchange and push email? What happens when it acquires GPS and maps as well? All for the price of an entry-level phone from Nokia or Samsung.
Regarding the latter, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
Overall, a lot of the new services announced won’t make huge waves in the Philippines. But the price point of the new and improved iPhone will. At less than P10,000.00 the 8GB iPhone will probably kill most of the competition. That is, if people don’t start charging more for unlocking it
