music on mobiles

(mock-up of the forthcoming, hopefully, iPhone)

Really, really interesting write up on textually about the current clash between verizon and cingular, and apple and motorola.

It seems like the new apple/motorola iPhone was set to launch this week at new orleans confab. But what's happening is that apple isn't getting any support from the two big wireless players (verizon and cingular) because of the way that apple has designed the phone.

The Apple phone would basically work like an iPod, in that you can plug it into a PC, and transfer songs to it directly. What Verizon and Cingular are pissed about is that they think that the ringtone model should be applied to all forms of media on next-gen phones like apple's. This would mean that for every song you want to put on your phone, you've got to pay so much cash.

This is a really huge turning point in the industry, and I hope that apple sticks to their guns, because maybe other companies will follow their general lead and demand that the current structure of media content on phones be changed. After a year at working at Sony's mobile division (which is now folded into their marketing division... ick) is that the mobile stuff will never really be able to hit until the phone providers are willing to open up their platforms, and go away from this closed pipe model of pay-to-play.

Apple has gotten some bad PR recently with the whole suing the blogger thing, but this is a big power play, and I hope the clout they've built up with the iPod will enable them to put pressure on these idiots.