If Apple Allows Competition for iTunes on the iPhone...
... Then This is What We Want.
Music subscription service Rhapsody has very publicly submitted an iPhone app to Apple and there's widespread speculation about whether Apple will approve an app that could be seen as competition to its own iTunes store. Like the Google Voice for iPhone fiasco, this is a story about freedom and platforms, about competition for filling consumer demand and about the long-term viability of the iPhone vs. open platforms like Android. Let's assume for a moment that Apple allowed apps that competed with iTunes on the phone. What kind of music app would you like to see? Here's our wish list.
Some people would like to see iPhone apps approved from Spotify (our review of submitted app) or Lala. Others want an iPhone version of open-codec video player VLC.
What I want is an MP3 blog music player. Maybe a Hype Machine iPhone app.
- It would pull in MP3 blogs. You can subscribe to MP3 blog RSS feeds as podcasts now, but the functionality is very limited and best suited to longer talk shows than collections of music.
- It would display the blog posts about the songs. Just like Pandora or Last.fm apps allow you to learn about the artist you're listening too, I want to be able to read at least part of the blog posts that accompany the MP3s I'm listening to.
- Allow bookmarking of songs. The most frustrating part of listening to songs in iTunes that came in from an MP3 blog's RSS feed is the inability to do much with the songs you like later.
- Search for text and MP3 archives. When I discover a new artist I think I like, I want to be able to easily find other blog posts and songs from them from around the web.
- Play related songs or artists. Integration with other apps would be all the better to power this.
- Pull in my Blip.fm social network. Blip.fm is my new favorite music service. It's user-driven, easy to make playlists for, and a great place to discover more diverse music that I've found anywhere else. I want to be able to pull in my playlists and favorite DJs and push new discoveries back to my account on Blip from inside this magic music app. I had big hopes for the Blip-powered Boom Box Pro app, but it's only half-functioning for me so far.
- Buying songs. I give Apple and AT&T so much money every month already. I'd like to be able to purchase music on my phone from other people, thank you.
That's what I want to see on my iPhone. If there's no good reason to believe that apps from Rhapsody, Spotify and Google Voice are going to be allowed, though, then there's little incentive for developers to build my fantasy app or yours. It's enough to make a person look at different phones.
What media apps would you like to have on your iPhone, if your iPhone could have any media apps you wanted?
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Apps that help you find movie and TV clips to share. They could come from movie studios, Hulu, Funny or Die etc. There needs to be a better movie quote search API in place to make this work well on both the desktop and mobile, but it could be quite cool, and could end up being plugins for existing apps like Shazam, or IM clients as well.
Here are some more ideas:
http://www.uwsjournal.com/2009/08/memorable-quotes.html
Why would I want to pull in my blip.fm social network instead of just making it easy to share music directly with my existing networks like Facebook and Twitter?
Certainly we've lost something in the translation to digital downloadable music -- I can't easily browse a friend's record or CD shelves and loan them a disc the way I used to. Remember record parties? Would be great to make it easy to find/share music again!
LOL, Apple is NOT going to permit competition. I know Apple has near-Holy status, but the fact is that Apple has always tried to control the OS, the software AND the hardware. Now that they finally have it, they're not going to give it up.
Ask RealNetworks how suing for access has panned out for them in the past... Even if they'd get it, they've fumbled every opportunity ever given to them. This is a bit of a Hail Mary for them.
+1 for the Hype Machine App. I love it!
Dale,
I completely agree. I've always shared music recommendations with friends and discovered some of the best music from "albums" friends have told me about.
In this new world where our music collections are so self-contained on our iPods and our interactions with our friends take place over social networks, email, instant messaging, text messaging, etc, I was amazed that there was no easy way to share a song from an iPhone to our friends. I decided to do something about it and started a blog http://blog.mobilemusicmessenger.com and hired a team of engineers and graphic designers to create an iPhone app that allows users to share their favorite songs over email, Twitter, and Facebook. http://mobilemusicmessenger.com
Actually, I am still waiting for a Rhapsody app on Mac, let alone the iPhone. Good luck, Real!
"If there's no good reason to believe that apps from Rhapsody, Spotify and Google Voice are going to be allowed, though, then there's little incentive for developers to build my fantasy app or yours. It's enough to make a person look at different phones. -- Marshall Kirkpatrick"
It is amazing how naive bloggers can be sometimes. As noted by others already, here and in so many other forums, Apple will do what it thinks will forward its business plan to make profit. Anything that would not be consistent with this ultimate goal is unlikely to happen.
One of those "No No's" would be to allow competitors to get a share of its bread and butter. More than likely, it will allow some Apps that will offer some of the stuff you are looking for, for as long as they are consistent with the business plan -- such App must not erode their long term profit strategies. This strategy includes protecting the technology that they built.
Contrary to many self-righteous proclamations, the Apple iPhone is not monopoly, and so are their other technologies -- iTunes, Apple Apps. The comparisons with past monopolistic behaviors of the so-called "evil Microsoft" are based on ignorance. The Apple iPhone, in spite of its success and unprecendented profitability, has at best 2% give or take a few, of the phone market. It will grow obviously based on the widespread demand of the latest iPhone iterations. However, the iPhone marketshare is unlikely to reach the market share that was achieved by Microsoft in the desktop computing. The obvious reason is very simple. Apple has no plans to create an iPhone for everyone, just like it did not rush into the netbook computers even if such variance has become very popular. Apple will create only an iPhone that will give them enormous profits. After all, how many companies, which have bigger shares of their market -- Microsoft, Nokia, HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo -- are raking in almost US $3 billion each quarter?
Sure they would want to get higher share of the market which is the reason for US$99 iPhone, an old Apple technology, that could not even be matched by the latest more expensive offerings of other companies trying to build the "iPhone killer". Next year, the current iPhone 3GS would likely be offered as their old technology, maybe even their future 2010 US$99 iPhone, as they roll out their latest iPhone iteration.
It is likely also that they may allow other telecom companies to have the iPhone once their exclusive deal with AT&T will expire. But again, for as long as Steve Jobs is alive, it will be under his terms. Surely they may compromise, as they have done with China, but only if it meets their main goal -- profit not marketshare.
"It's enough to make a person look at different phones. -- Marshall Kirkpatrick"
Well, I wouild be very interested to know also if you find any smartphone that has an ecosystem comparable to the ecosystem of the iPhone -- great technology (at least it is still being copied with not much success by other companies), an unparalleled Apps ecpsystem (65-70K, an counting), iTunes, the Apple Store support (Genius Bar, one-on-one tutorials, etc.), and more.
Or will you grandstand like Arrington, who publicly renounced his use of the iPhone simply because Apple would not do everything he wanted?
Arrington left the iPhone, but where did he go? RIM, Palm Pre, Android? Can you really tell me that the ecosystems of these smartphones are comparable to the current ecosystem of the iPhone? As some critics pointed out, why didn't Arrington just jailbroken his iPhone to use the Google Voice? Or use the web based version? Or better yet, if he likes the iPhone but not AT&T or Apple practices, why not just use his iPhone with his choice carrier (severe his relationship with AT&T by paying the penalties), in combination with jailbreaking, like I am sure were being done by millions who bought the iPhone, some using T-Mobile, and whatever carrier they had in their countries before the iPhone went worldwide.
What will you do if Apple will not give in to what you want?