Archive - Imperfect Now

Wi-Pods: Future of Music Players

Across the United States, Wi-Fi networks run by government agencies are bringing the popular wireless technology to larger and larger areas. San Francisco and Philadelphia are both two major cities undertaking projects to provide free or low cost wi-fi to their citizens in hopes of luring tech savvy young people to their neighborhoods.

Private networks are expanding all the time as well. Starbucks and T-Mobile have a widely publicized arrangement bringing T-Mobile Wi-Fi to Starbucks across the nation. This of course is a pay service, but many smaller coffee houses are competing with Starbucks by offering free service.

All this really means is very soon the entire nation will be hardwired for Wi-Fi, and the service will be cheap or free. The first product we would like to see to piggyback off this advance is the Wi-Fi equipped iPod.

IPod’s have grown as the king of MP3 players [and the iPod Mini its queen]. Competition in the MP3 market is heating up with companies other than Apple trying to snag part of the market with knockoffs of the iPod. Dell and HP computers, traditionally computer manufacturers, have certainly been headed towards consumer electronics. Having the users’ computer is probably even more important to selling music players than have the iTunes store Apple has.

Apple took the risk of creating the first pay per download music store, with great results. The real reason was not to sell music, though they are not doing badly as a result, but to sell the iPod. Apple needed a way for users to download legal music files and also help promote their player. It worked out fabulously and now they dominate both markets.

MP3 player manufacturers have all seen the system as a great way to build brand loyalty by forcing users to use their music service with the Mp3 player [these of course, we know, are not all MP3. The real file types are irrelevant.] Early on, we think all these formats actually hurt sales of MP3 players [and ultimately helped iPod who was seen as the standard bearer].

But Real Networks came to rescue writing software “hacks” that essentially bypasses the proprietary digital rights management on other stores’ MP3’s allowing them to play on the Real Networks MP3 player. Apple insists their “hack” will not last, but ultimately only a universal encoding system will allow the medium to survive.

In either case, the size of the players has shrunk and their storage capacity has grown, and more importantly, the cost has been cut. Apple is clearly the trendiest, but others are catching up. The last hurdle to maintaining customers was restricting what devices the media would play on, but even that is slipping away. Consumers rejoice, because we should all expect some real innovation:

Hooking an iPod up to a Wi-Fi network [and we’re hoping for a wide ranging, all covering network], Apple could sell music from its iTunes music store directly to users’ iPods. Before users even leave the store, they could be downloading new songs at 99 cents each.

Consumers of course would have the benefit of never running out of music. A long road trip might get boring, but just download a few more songs as you drive and instantly the stale Beach Boy’s tracks are replaced with the latest grunge rock. Unlike recent iPod “Innovations” of allowing users to surf through their pictures, a Wi-Fi iPod might actually be something users want.

ITunes would need to develop an interface that could talk directly to the iPod over the Wi-Fi network. But we know those whacky engineers over at Apple can handle a little programming. The physical dimensions of the iPod could still probably handle the WiFi receiver without too many problems, especially as hardware continues to shrink. The real obstacle is free wireless networks, and these will probably appear within a few years.

On the other hand, maybe it won’t be Apple. Starbucks for instance already has the Wi-Fi networks in their stores. Starbucks is already in the business of selling music, essentially kiosks at Starbucks produce customized CD’s while coffee drinkers enjoy their morning brew. With their network of stores and wireless service from T-Mobile, the next step from them would be a wireless equipped MP3 player.

Starbucks customers would then buy digital songs whenever they come to for coffee—or even more important, would come and buy coffee whenever they wanted more songs. Since Starbucks has already watered down its brand name selling music from the kiosks [or perhaps, strengthened it], there is no reason other than that Starbucks lacks an MP3 player. With all the hardware companies though itching to find a new hot item, Starbucks could easily find a good partner.

Of course, we could be completely wrong. Maybe music lovers want to actually sit at their computer and download music. But we don’t think so. We want to download on the go, or at least over a cup of coffee.