iLounge

1

$2/song! That’s crazy!

Posted by Nipith in Los Angeles, CA on April 19, 2005 at 10:28 AM (PDT)

2

As a customer of Sprint I want to say F.U….but we just got our phones upgraded and must wait 18 months before we can get new phones so even if they offered the itunes phone it would have been September 2006 beofre I could have gotten it anyway.

And $2 per song!
Sorry,Sprint,I have a ipod for music. There isn’t a song in the world worth $2 to only be able to hear it on a cell and if there is I’d already own the cd.

Posted by CanofAir on April 19, 2005 at 10:36 AM (PDT)

3

Yep, that’s too much. But I’m sure some people will pay because there are too many that just have to have things right away, no matter the cost. I have no plans to ever listen to music on my cellphone. I’ll be sticking with my iPod for that.

Butch

Posted by Railrider on April 19, 2005 at 10:42 AM (PDT)

4

As long as Cingular doesn’t follow suit like everyone else (Verizon, et al) and block Bluetooth file transfer I think I will be fine with this. Whenever I upgrade my current phone to one that is capable of playing back MP3s and supports Bluetooth I can transfer all the music I want from my collection without having to deal with downloading some overpriced file from their store. All I really want the MP3s for anyway are cooler sounding ringtones anyway.

Posted by Jon in Seattle, WA on April 19, 2005 at 10:59 AM (PDT)

5

Close your eyes and image the experience of music shopping from your phone.

Now image reaching into your wallet and paying three times as much as it would cost to shop at iTunes.

Now go watch some TV while the song slowly downloads.

Now enjoy your music on your phone, and only your phone, because you can’t use it anywhere else or burn a CD or back it up to your computer.

Hmmmm…. tempting

Posted by Nagromme on April 19, 2005 at 12:28 PM (PDT)

6

Now take a deep breath, listen to your heartbeat, and imagine that I typed “imagine” instead of “image.”

Posted by Nagromme on April 19, 2005 at 12:30 PM (PDT)

7

Hahahahah… nice save there Nagromme.

I really hope that T-Mobile becomes the ‘different’ one and picks up the Motorola phones. I wouldn’t get the first round, but if/when they beef up the storage space and I could put a couple CD’s worth on there I’ll be all for it.

Having an iPod and cell phone as one complete device would be bliss.

N oh yeah… $2 for a song with such restricted listening is complete BS.

Posted by LilAlienD in Maryland on April 19, 2005 at 1:30 PM (PDT)

8

Not to mention that if you don’t subscribe to a data plan you will be paying data charges for each download.

Posted by BulkHedd on April 19, 2005 at 2:16 PM (PDT)

9

Time for the FCC to step in and force delinking of equipment and service in the wireless industry, just like they did with wireline years ago. F Verizon!

Posted by m.s. on April 19, 2005 at 2:57 PM (PDT)

10

Carriers need to get over themselves and get with the program.  People don’t want to pay their exuberant prices just because they own the market, two to three dollars a song is an absolute atrocious rip off of their closed system networks.  It’s just as bad as the prices people pay to download ring tones onto their cellphones.

Iggy #hmm

Posted by TheIguana in Calgary, Alberta, Prarires, Canada, North America, on April 19, 2005 at 3:59 PM (PDT)

11

Good luck with that!  Class action lawsuits over crippling bluetooth, and Verison still hasn’t learned a thing.  Please, oh please Apple, give us a cell phone!!!

Posted by mwilgar on April 19, 2005 at 4:21 PM (PDT)

12

Hello,

Occasionally we get treated to moronic executives launching lamentable products.  I’m amazed Verizon et al have executives that:

a) Draw a paycheck
b) See a future for themselves in the industry

(I don’t even see it worth discussing the “whys�.)

A distantly related fiasco was Sony’s ATRAC3 format, which had doomed writ large across it from the outset. 

Steve Jobs may not be God, but he does know:

a) An ipod is a PASSIVE product the way a TV is. The enjoyment comes from EXPERIENCING it.
b) A phone is an INTERACTIVE product the way a computer is. Who needs phone interruptions when you’re zoning to Coldplay?

If you want to compete with Apple for a slice of any market they dominate, you must have 100 per cent control of hardware and software. If Microsoft can’t do this, how are you going to?

Goodbye

Posted by Richard Donald on April 19, 2005 at 7:03 PM (PDT)

13

I once spent $2-3 to purchase a song…a Roxette cassette single (“cassingle”) back in 1989. Adjusting for inflation with 2005 dollars, I can now download that same song (sans the tape hiss) for…$0.99.  So now we can be all retro and pay $2-3 for a single song again.  Radical, dude!!

Posted by erayser in Los Angeles, CA on April 19, 2005 at 10:17 PM (PDT)

14

This is definitely paying through the nose. I have always wondered…how does one pay through the nose? How does the money get in the nose in the first place? is the money pulled out with the hand or is there a sneeze involved? Who would accept such a transaction?

Anyway $2 song (on my space restricted mobile phone) is just as much BS as i have written above.

Posted by Vinod in Singapore on April 20, 2005 at 12:47 AM (PDT)

15

I feel silly for just using my Cell Phone as a phone…

Posted by croooow in Fairfax, VA on April 20, 2005 at 5:32 AM (PDT)

16

You know, the worst part about this is that the record companies are gonna look at this and say, “Hey, they can charge $2 for a song limited to a cell phone. Mr. Jobs, why can’t you charge $2 in iTunes?”

Apple is having a hard enough time fighting them off to keep the prices at $0.99.  This is just gonna put more pressure on Apple to follow suit and cave in to the record execs.

Posted by ACLeroK212 on April 20, 2005 at 6:38 AM (PDT)

17

Jon,

How do you upload songs to your phone? I have the Motorola v180 and it does have a USB port, but I haven’t figured out how to use it yet.

Posted by Mani on April 20, 2005 at 6:57 AM (PDT)

18

I don’t know the specifics for each phone, but as long as it isn’t crippled I think it should be fairly easy to transfer files. You say it has USB, do you have the actual USB cable to connect it to your computer? Usually cell phone companies charge some absurd price for this cable, so that is why IMO Bluetooth is a little more cost effective in not having to buy one cable and being able to use it with multiple phones. Try searching for like “Motorola v180 file transfer” on Google, you are bound to find something.

Posted by Jon in Seattle, WA on April 20, 2005 at 8:07 AM (PDT)

19

i would never pay for music only for my phone. that’s why all my phones in the past 4 years have had bluetooth so i can transfer data (music, pictures, etc) to/from my computer that way. as far as holding a lot of music, i have a 256mb card for my new SE phone that will mostly be used for pictures. i have two ipods to listen to music on. i also don’t want to carry a phone specific set of headphones when i have a high quality pair for actual music jacks.
and until there’s a phone that has something like a scroll wheel to get through music, why would i want to put that much on there anyway? it would take forever to click or hold the up/down button to get to one song out of 1000.
$2 a song. geez, these are the same people that will pay $2 for stupid songs/themes/pictures advertised on tv. people will buy them, there’s no doubt. there’s a lot of idiots in the world that just dont know better

Posted by mdwsta4 on April 20, 2005 at 9:34 AM (PDT)