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January 29, 2008

rivals

Would Amazon make a music player? Don’t hold your breath.

Posted Jan. 29, ’08, 8:19 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Apple » Rivals

Bezos and JobsAmazon’s already on its way to bringing the joyful sound of DRM-free MP3s to the world, but some people think they could pose an even greater threat to current king of the hill Apple. Rob Beschizza over at Wired speculates that Bezos and Co. could step on Apple’s toes by releasing a network-connected music player. He even thoughtfully breaks down Amazon’s plan for success, Internet meme-style:

1. Make its MP3 store global.
2. Make a WWAN-equipped MP3 player hooked into the music store, a la Kindle.
3. Profit. Profit like God-damned crazy.
Wait, wait—a la Kindle? Have you actually seen the Kindle? If Apple could have had their lunch eaten by an ugly-as-sin but functional music player, then, well, we’d all be using Creative Nomads.

Look, the Kindle epitomized Amazon’s strengths and weaknesses: they’re great at rolling out services, but their idea of hardware design looks like the future designed by a six year old kid twenty years ago. Plus, the whole point of Amazon’s DRM-free service is that it doesn’t need to be tied to its own player: people can put music on the iPods that they already own. Why the heck would they go out and buy a new player, especially one that looks like a Kindle? Admittedly, the idea of hooking it up to a large scale wireless network is interesting, but Apple’s clearly already heading down this path with the iPhone and iPod touch and the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store. I don’t think that Amazon’s going to beat them to the punch there.


1 Comments

fletcher Author Profile Page said:

Oh yeah, the Amazon MP3 player. It would cost money to transfer songs to it whether they came from Amazon's store or your own CDs. It would be great.

January 29, 2008 8:38 AM

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