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You are here: Home / BlackBerry / Why RIM and Apple should offer iTunes Mobile on multimedia Blackberrys…

Why RIM and Apple should offer iTunes Mobile on multimedia Blackberrys…

September 5, 2006 by Robb Dunewood 11 Comments

I was just thinking about the new Media Manager that will be part of Blackberry Desktop Manager 4.2 and whether it will be easy to synch playlists from iTunes when it hit all of a sudden… Why not just put iTunes Mobile on the BlackBerry?

I know that we have talked about AppleBerrys before and have never really gotten passed the rumors of if it will or will not ever happen, however, the more that I think about it, the more that I think that RIM and Apple should just come out with iTunes Mobile for BlackBerry.

iTunes on mobile phones has overwhelmingly been a disappointment, whether it be from buggy hardware or from an interface that is just to cumbersome to use on a mobile phones standard keyboard. RIM, on the other hand, is known to have the most stable hardware of any smartphone on the planet and they practically invented the QWERTY keyboard for mobile devices.

Additionally, iTunes on a BlackBerry could be an immediate win for both RIM and Apple. I don’t think that the BlackBerry will ever replace the iPod, however, being able to download iTunes content over-the-air would definitely be worth the development time of an iTunes Mobile client for BlackBerry.

Look at it this way. Worldwide ringtones sales were around $4.4 billion dollars last year. Over $500 million of this was in the United States alone and it is estimated that over $600 million will be sold in the U.S. this year. Some of these ringtones go for $2.50 to $3.50 a pop, and that is just for a 15 to 30 second clip of a song.

Most iTunes songs go for $0.99. That is for the entire song that you can do with what you want after you download it, including legally turning it into a ringtone for use on your device. If someone who would spend 2 or 3 bucks on a ringtone, wouldn’t they spend 99 cents on the entire song, so long as it were easy for them to download to their device effectively.

Past experience tells us that any new BlackBerry will be as stable as stable comes . All BlackBerrys have QWERTY or SureType QWERTY keyboards which should make using the iTunes Mobile for BlackBerry interface a snap. It seems like if Apple and RIM come together on an iTunes Mobile client for BlackBerry that they could be sitting on a potential goldmine.

What do you think?

iTunes Mobile

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Comments

  1. Rich says

    September 5, 2006 at 11:53 pm

    What would be really cool is that if RIM and Apple came out with a version of iTunes for the BlackBerry that allowed you to create ringtones from music that you download directly on your BlackBerry.

    Kill two birds with one stone.

    Reply
  2. Dumb Idea says

    September 6, 2006 at 8:55 am

    I think that you forget that most BlackBerry users use it for work. Teenagers and college students are the ones that are into downloading ringtones and music off of iTunes.

    Putting something like this onto a business device is just one more thing to decrease its reliability which i beleive is one of the major issues with MP3 player phones.

    Reply
  3. Eric W. says

    September 6, 2006 at 8:59 am

    I don’t think that it is a dumb idea but I don’t think that it would take off like you think. The dumb idea guy does make a good point. Most BlackBerry users are business users and aren’t the ones that would probably download stuff from i tunes.

    Reply
  4. Bob says

    September 6, 2006 at 9:49 am

    Eric W,

    Most BlackBerry users are business users, but this may mean that they have less time to go looking for illegal downloads and sharing music with their friends. Teens on the other hand have quite a bit of time to engage in these nefarious activities. I’ve never seen the demographics of an average iTune store user, but my guess is that a significant portion are business professionals. Business professionals likely are willing to pay for the convenience of an iTunes download.

    Reply
  5. Robb Dunewood says

    September 6, 2006 at 11:15 am

    I have to agree with Bob on this one. You would be surprised at the number of working adults that download music from iTunes. I can honestly tell you that I have not bought a single CD since I started using iTunes a couple of years ago…

    Reply
  6. stuff says

    September 6, 2006 at 1:23 pm

    People don’t seem to realize this but look in the 8100 user guide. It can play AAC formated media. This is the proprietary APPLE codec and software. RIM and Apple have already started to work together as APPLE has to expressly license/ permission usage of the AAC codec. You may seem iTunes and more in the near future.

    Reply
  7. Anonymous says

    September 6, 2006 at 1:54 pm

    stuff, AAC is an open codec. Apple wraps their Fairplay DRM around AAC, creating a protected propritary file (also referred to as AAC+).

    Reply
  8. thought says

    September 6, 2006 at 9:58 pm

    Adult professionals over the age of 25 like to have fun too!

    I believe a key to success of any iTunes on mobile device is to have over the air download capacity at the same 0.99 price point.

    Reply
  9. stuff says

    September 7, 2006 at 12:01 pm

    8100 supports AAC+, but currently no Fairplay DRM support, will be shortly though……

    Reply
  10. scott says

    September 7, 2006 at 4:05 pm

    why would anyone leave fairplay on their songs? i mean really people, if you buy it, use hymn project and strip it so you can do with it what you want. nothing is more enjoyable than sticking it to the man trying to stick it to you.

    Reply
  11. Robb Dunewood says

    September 8, 2006 at 2:06 pm

    Another huge reason that Apple and RIM should offer iTunes on the BlackBerry is becasue the already has the ability to play MP3s as ringtones.

    Reply

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