Downloading a lot of music over the cellular data network is a bit scary to me. Is it really wise? That's a lot of bandwidth being devoted to a task that can be accomplished faster and more efficiently by just plugging in a USB cable. Phones are personal devices -- it's not like they're too far out of reach at any given time. It would probably be more responsible for this feature to only work over wifi at least until the US data networks catch-up with current demand. I don't want to suffer with slow speeds because someone has their SmartPhone 6 inches from their computer doing OTA downloads of 80MB albums instead of plugging in a cable. I suspect some carriers will disable this feature on their devices. The OTA/web app downloading on the other hand makes perfect sense. Fairly small apps -- stuff you'd be downloading on your phone anyway.
- Lots of people are streaming music to their phones all the time anyway (Pandora, etc)
- There is a class of users that _only_ uses their phone and doesn't have a computer.
I guess my point isn't that I don't think US data networks can catch up. Each increase in speed will increase the utility of the network and increase the utilization until we "top out" at phones, iPads and all sorts of devices constantly being connected.
This seems very conservative. Let's not worry about the poor US carriers getting so much business these days.
In the EU I have an unlimited 3G subscription for about 10 eur. It's probably capped in some way but always got the job done (albeit sometimes very slowly). Why should I worry that the data network is overloaded when the carrier here sells this thing. It's probably illegal to sell a service you know you cannot provide.
In the UK I have a 'unlimited' (10G cap, tethering allowed) for £6/mo with T-mobile.
It's good enough that I used it as my only Internet connection for six months. No problems with iPlayer/streaming video, the speed stays at 200kb/sec even after you go over the cap. Just don't do that too many months in a row!
Everywhere where i have a desktop computer, i also have Wifi. My mobile would download over Wifi, without having to carry around a cable just for the chance to get some files on the device.
Also, 3G downloadspeed has always been around 200kB/s for me.. that's fine for the times i have no wifi.
My guess is that much of the syncing and streaming will require the devices to be on the same local subnet/wifi. Otherwise things get hairy, as you pointed out.
Do music stores even matter anymore? Selling DRM-free MP3 downloads is a commodity business if I've ever seen one. The only trick is getting labels to sign on. Besides, syncing is an essential part of buying MP3 music: you don't want your music library only stored on your easily-lost cellphone, do you?
Anyone know if Google's music store lets you re-download songs? If not, I imagine there's going to be more than a few people who have to re-buy a bunch of albums because they lost their never-synced phone.
Selling mp3s may not be the point. This may just be a really great feature that helps sell phones. Certainly, iTunes integration is a major selling point for iPhones.
I am in the process of getting a patent on a method for distributing digital media in a unique way. I have a private proof of concept website set up now, but it is not ready to launch publicly yet (the graphical design is very rough and the selection of media is extremely limited at this time).
If you would like to check it out I can set up an account for you to see how it works.
To Update: Pontifier has sent me through the link / login details.. I'll agree completely that the design needs a lot of work -- but I'll refrain from commenting on how it works / business models / etc until I've played with it a bit more.
Proof of concept can also mean a demonstration that the technology is effective, not just "I got a bunch of users and I think I might be able to monetize them." If he's patenting a method of distribution, I'd assume the former is more useful than the latter.
