As Apple continues to make headlines, do other mobile distribution models actually offer greater value to users and operators?
The Apple backlash has begun, what with accusations of blocking the iPhone leading to a class action in the USA, and poor publicity following a price cut after many people had already paid top dollar for the phone.
But there's yet another area that has been a focus of attack. Other mobile music companies have tried to get things rolling around a debate that suggests that actually the music model shortchanges both the users and their host operator.
The phone doesn't allow track download over the mobile network, say the critics, harming both the host operators' own revenues as well as inconveniencing the users, who will have to get to a WiFi hotspot if they want to download music direct to the phone.
But has the point been missed about the iPhone? It's an extra endpoint for Apple's own music distribution system, sure. But more than that, it never claimed to offer over the air downloads to the phone. Those who castigate it for not providing sufficient potential download revenues to the operator have missed the point.
Ask yourself how people really use their iPods. It's a certainty that most music on iPods has not been purchased through iTunes. People drop music in there from their own CD collections, things their friends have sent them, and stuff they have downloaded for free, or via P2P.
And there's always the point that if someone really, really needs to download a song right now to their mobile, then that will only serve to point them to their operators' own full track download service.
In any case, there's now a major debate around whether full track downloads to mobile over the air are really the way ahead.
Omniphone ceo Rob Lewis has told Mobile Europe before that it is his belief that people are more relaxed now about actually owning the music they want to listen to. His subscription model helps users listen to any song they want, for a small weekly or monthly fee. As long are you pay, you can listen to the song. If you're not a subscriber, you‘re blocked out.
With its first customer Telenor in Norwar signing up in the summer, Omniphone recently landed a bigger fish in Vodafone, the operator perhaps keen to have a weapon to fight the iPhone publicity bandwagon with.
Vodafone customers will have access to over a million tracks from Omniphone's record label partners. Customers will be able to sign up for unlimited downloads from MusicStation for just £1.99 per week and, although Vodafone will no doubt use the service to promote some phones in its Christmas handset range, the service will be useable on existing 2.5G and 3G handsets as well.
Tim Yates, CMO, Vodafone UK, says the launch of the MusicStation service marked "a fundamental change to the way people experience music on their phones".
So, that is the subscription model, flexible and useable but people need to get their heads round the fact that they don''t actually, unless they want to pay even more, own the music.
Another approach is to bypass the mobile network altogether, and merely hook up the endpoint device to songs already sitting on a user's PC.
Oxy Systems, developer of phling!, the mobile music social networking service has announced a partnership with media company Edipresse Switzerland, to enable customers of Orange Switzerland, Sunrise and Swisscom Mobile to use their mobile phones to browse, listen and share music and to discover new music from Edipresse's Internet-based radio station, and from other users in the phling! community.
The phling! service is available to mobile operators across Europe for deployment.
Philippe Gendret, Director Digital & Business Development for Edipresse Switzerland, said, "We are constantly looking to capitalize and extend our brand reach to our core target media and mobile is a natural fit for us. By working with phling! we are able to market an exciting and unique service to consumers who appreciate music."
"Most handsets have limited storage capacities, which is a restraining factor for mobile music adoption. phling! addresses this issue by allowing customers to listen to their music by wirelessly streaming these files to their handsets," says Julien Blin, research analyst in IDC's Wireless and Mobile Communications program.
"The mobile music market is nearing an inflection point and the phling! service is a unique way for consumers to access and share music files," commented Piper Jaffray Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst Gene Munster. "Additionally, as mobile operators continue to try to find news ways to differentiate their services, phling! provides a compelling new offering"
The Java application, downloadable over the air, works a bit like Orb, in that you need to leave you PC switched on and connected to the internet when you are out. Having done that, when you fire up the phling! app on your phone, you connect into the folders and files on your PC that you have marked as being accessible by the app.
You can then stream those files from your PC to your mobile. Oxy Systems, which is marketing the applicaiton, says it has more operator announcements lined up and has been working on the technology for four years.âÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ?¨Adrian Bisaz, vp of business development for the privately held company, said that operators like the system because it doesn't impinge on their existing music strategies, but allows them to hook their users to the music they have already bought and paid for on their PC. He reckons subscribers in Europe will pay between €5-10 a month for the service to be bundled with a data plan – a subscription that can be shared 100% between Oxy and the operator, as no music license fees are involved.
€5-10 a month is about the same as Omniphone's £2 a week, sort of. The slight snag at the moment is that anything with Apple's Fairplay DRM in it is not supported, although Bisaz says all other DRM is, and the company is "working" on Windows Music DRM. MP3s, AAC and WMA formats are supported, Bisaz said.âÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ?¨As well as simply giving you access to your own music, the application adds a little bit of social networking, letting users set up a profile, and let others see their playlists, make recommendations, see lists of most-played, top-rated music and so on. Users can even list up to six people who are allowed to access music held on their own computer and stream play to their own mobiles. Bisaz said the number is limited to six to keep well within a threshold of what constitutes private performance, hence keeping well away from the record companies' ire around licensing. Also, he points out that files are not being shared and swapped, it's merely a streaming format.The second plus for operators from the service, Bisaz said, apart from the revenue share on the sub, would be the e-commerce capability added to the service, allowing users to buy a track they like. This could hook directly into operators' own music platforms, he said, generating increased sales.âÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ?¨Bisaz also said Oxy is talking to advertiser and media brands about the application, "giving them a way to participate in this mobile music growth market. At the moment Oxy has 25 phones which can support the app, across Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung portfolios. Being a Java application there should theoretically not be a problem expanding that.âÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ?¨Although there are other remote access to your PC products out there (Orb Networks being one example) Bisaz said that phling! has the advantage of being specifically designed for music, and having additional functionality around sharing and networking built in.
So there's at least four very different go to market methods at the moment. Apple, full track download, subscription and PC-streaming. The methods differ in scope, reach, useability and, a little, in pricing. The choice will be the user's, and operators may well find themselves supporting three of the four choices. That is, at least, if they have not signed up for a bite of the Apple.