Once in a while I have to stop and think where Apple is going to go next. It was much more difficult years ago when they didn't have a consistent methodology or constructive culture, but now I think it is much easier.
The thought I had today is in regard to Apple's product the iPod, and how Apple is going to sell cell phone versions of the iPod that will download music from the iTunes service.
The crux of the problem is that currently the cell phone service companies like Verizon and Cingular have huge control over how cell phones are manufactured for use with their networks because they subsidize the cost of the phone over twelve or twenty four months via a service contract. You can get a phone for free, or for a hundred bucks, or for three hundred dollars that way which would cost another two to four hundred dollars more. Very few people pay list price for a cell phone, they wait 'til the contract is done, and then work out a deal which includes a new phone from someone.
In recent news reports, Motorola was about to announce the result of a collaboration between Moto and Apple: a cell phone that plays audio files compatible with Apple's iTunes service. Various reports indicate that the announcement was squelched at the last minute variously by Apple's Steve Jobs, or by the prospective cell network providers. The cell network providers presumably require that the cell phone customers download songs ala ringtones from the cell network provider and from nowhere else, at a higher price than your typical iTunes song cost of 99 cents US.
This is because the cell network providers presumably have a huge leverage over Apple and Moto because they're the ones who are going to subsidize the sale of the phones to customers for a phone that might list at 700 dollars.
I believe that this is a bad assumption on the cell phone service provider's part, because Apple computer can also subsidize the phones, if they really want to get into that kind of business.
Apple could sell one and two year iTunes subscriptions, and subsidize the price of the phones the same way that the cell phone companies do.
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