I can’t see a gPhone being anything more than an implied threat. Google wants its services on everybody’s handsets and everybody’s carrier. An actual gPhone for sale today would antagonise all of them.

I think it has to be a demonstrator for now, showing carriers and handset makers what to integrate into their products and services to benefit from Google (location and user context sensitive) ad revenue sharing. And of course Apple will integrate some or all of those things into iPhone.

Or something like that . . .

[quote author=“sleepygeek”]I think it has to be a demonstrator for now, showing carriers and handset makers what to integrate into their products and services to benefit from Google (location and user context sensitive) ad revenue sharing. And of course Apple will integrate some or all of those things into iPhone.

This has always been my thinking on the matter too, but there’s a veritable cacophony of voices yelling that they’ve actually seen/almost seen/know someone who has seen the Google phone (or one of 30 variants HTC are rumoured to have prototyped )

Showing how behind they times they are, this is what the CEO of this silly new download service had to say:

Rob Lewis, the chief executive of Omnifone, said that he was confident that the service presented a serious threat to Apple. “The iPhone is an interesting device, but what we are offering is an unlimited, unrestricted direct-to-phone service,” he said.

You GIT! None of your crappy music will work with iPods, or iTunes. And in any event, as Wheeles said, I have one thing to say in response: “iTunes WiFi Music Store.” Music straight to your iPhone, or iPod, and which won’t vanish when you stop paying some silly subscription, or when the service goes out of business.

People are not going to pay almost Ј10/month to subscribe to “free music” to listen to on their mobile, when they can just download it for free off Limewire or buy their tracks easily - and permanently - from iTunes.

Here’s a bit of common sense:

Nick Lane, of Direct2Consult, said: “It is questionable whether people want to effectively rent their music rather than own it.” He also doubted Vodafone and MusicStation’s ability to persuade users to spend Ј103 a year on music on their mobiles. The average spend on mobile music is about Ј13 a year per subscriber, he said.

Too bloody right. This group of deadbeats reminds me of a couple of drunks leaning on each other for support in the middle of the road: however long they manage to support one another, eventually they’ll be mown down by the oncoming iTunes juggernaut just like all the other roadkill.

And I’m sure the unlimited downloads aren’t free at all, but subject to data trasfer charges on t op.

[quote author=“sleepygeek”]And I’m sure the unlimited downloads aren’t free at all, but subject to data trasfer charges on t op.

No apparently that’s the point of the service.. its “all-in.” All-in, that is, except you can’t offload any of your music from your home onto your PC, your Mac, an iPod or indeed any other MP3 player. You have to pay “an additional fee” in order to be able to play your music on other devices, Omnifone say… and they don’t say how much that will be, or when it will be made available, or how it will be achieved.. or anything really.

This is another example of the “tiered flexible pricing” crap the studios, the movie/tv business, and the music industry want to shove down our throats. Is it any wonder Steve Jobs is telling them to get f*cked?

I can still hardly believe that anyone thinks customers are going to hand over Ј8/month (over $16) to their cellular provider to listen to music that’s completely locked down to their cellphone. People HATE their mobile networks. There’s no way they’ll hand over this sort of money - or any amount - to these price-gouging crooks, when they can get it for free and use it anywhere, or at the very least buy it from iTunes and use it on their iPod.

And these clowns think people will then be willing to pay extra on top of this just to be able to listen to their rented music on their PCs?

If Vodafone and the other blowhard networks really think they’re going to sell any more phones, or skim any profits, off this lousy crap overpriced DRM-laden restricted-playback nonsense, they’re living in la-la-land.

This Omnifone MusicStation story - reportedly with major studio backing and being signed up to networks all over the world - is going to be a massive, high profile, and very public humiliation for the networks. Its going to crash and burn their entire digital music strategy and prove once and for all that music rentals tied to mobile handsets are one of the stupidest ideas since.. since.. since Ringles

And pity poor Nokia, who think that their “strong and trusted brand” is going to be sufficient to entice their customers to buy music thru their new Ovary service, or whatever its called. Nokia has no brand identity. Its a nothing brand. Its just a provider of competent phones, nothing more and nothing less. Nokia is delusional, as is Vodafone, in confusing a highly recognisable and ubiquitous brand with brand strength. Poor sods. More meat for the iTunes grinder.

All these services will do is compete with one another, leaving iTunes to reign supreme and unchallenged. The more of these clowns the better - they’re ants fighting each other for bread crumbs under the dining table while King Apple sits down to a 5-course meal above them.

Message to Vodafone: you’re a network provider, and that’s all you’re going to be because your customers hate you - along with all the other networks. They’d rather do business with anyone-but-you, and certainly don’t equate your brand with anything nearly hip or cool enough to want to buy their music from, especially when they can steal it for free. You’re a pathetic bunch of losers going the way of the dinosaurs, desperately trying to drum up extra revenues from stupid add-on services nobody wants to buy from you. Wake up!

[quote author=“Tommo_UK”][quote author=“sleepygeek”]And I’m sure the unlimited downloads aren’t free at all, but subject to data trasfer charges on top.

No apparently that’s the point of the service.. its “all-in.”

Well, I’m amazed. So, for Ј1.99 a week I can make continuous music data transfers over the Vodafone network 24/7. I’ve a good mind to write to the regulator asking why it isn’t less than that without the music. (it’s actually Ј2 per megabyte at the moment I think, which comes to about a million pounds a week to transfer data flat out 24/7.)

Have I really got this right? Every time I look at mobile data it seems completely insane to me.

[quote author=“sleepygeek”][quote author=“Tommo_UK”][quote author=“sleepygeek”]And I’m sure the unlimited downloads aren’t free at all, but subject to data trasfer charges on top.

No apparently that’s the point of the service.. its “all-in.”

Well, I’m amazed. So, for Ј1.99 a week I can make continuous music data transfers over the Vodafone network 24/7. I’ve a good mind to write to the regulator asking why it isn’t less than that without the music. (it’s actually Ј2 per megabyte at the moment I think, which comes to about a million pounds a week to transfer data flat out 24/7.)

Have I really got this right? Every time I look at mobile data it seems completely insane to me.

No.. they’re subscription downloads.. ie. you can download as much music as you like to your phone for Ј2/week. It isn’t streamed - they’re actual downloads (albeit tethered to your phone), AFAI understand it - someone correct me if I’ve got this wrong?

I understand that they aren’t streamed; I was meaning that technically I could keep deleting downloads or swapping flash cards and downloading more music 24/7, resulting in constant 1.4Mbps data transfer 24/7, all for Ј1.99 a week. To download the same amount of non-music data costs, by my reckoning a million pounds from Vodafone. Even to download half a dozen MP3’s from elsewhere on the internet would cost Ј10-20 in data charges from Vodaphone.

[quote author=“sleepygeek”]I understand that they aren’t streamed; I was meaning that technically I could keep deleting downloads or swapping flash cards and downloading more music 24/7, resulting in constant 1.4Mbps data transfer 24/7, all for Ј1.99 a week. To download the same amount of non-music data costs, by my reckoning a million pounds from Vodafone. Even to download half a dozen MP3’s from elsewhere on the internet would cost Ј10-20 in data charges from Vodaphone.

Lol - you could indeed indulge in colossal waste of bandwidth if you wanted to stick it to Vodafone, but you’d have to really, really want to stick it to them to bother. Wait, you really really want to stick it to them? Go for it

Vodafone’s “iPhone Killer,” courtesy of Samsung.

Poor bastards. And it doesn’t even have WiFi.