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iPhone needs iTunes
Posted by rod@drury.net.nz in Apple, Communications, Microsoft, TechBiz at 11:54 am on Friday, 15 June 2007

Very clever. Each iPhone user must be an iTunes user, creating a non-carrier billing model.

Computerworld: IPhone users will need iTunes account, Apple says

The move will allow Apple to create its own billing relationship with iPhone customers, rather than collecting payments for any iTunes purchases they make via the mobile operator.

This would have Microsoft concerned as it doesn’t have a regular content billing relationship with most consumers.  Nether does Google. The game continues.

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Comments(3)

    Comment by Ben at 12:58 pm on 15 June 2007

    yes more proof I think that Apple is making gains as a result of the MS v Google battle as here




    Comment by Rich at 3:36 pm on 15 June 2007

    So will there be dual billing - through Apple for media purchases and through the telco for airtime and the like?

    Won’t this drive the telcos to favour non-Apple handsets with better subsidies and promotion?

    I’m a bit unconvinced that Apple understands the commercial complexities of telecoms well enough to succeed in this market - or will they just change everything?




    Comment by Bruce Hoult at 12:38 am on 16 June 2007

    It’s been amazing watching the different bits fit together. They seem to do several unrelated and puzzling things and then … click … something joins them. The movie trailer downloads came first, in 1999. Why were they doing that? To push QuickTime as a format? Partly, but mostly I think to get experience handling huge internet loads when popular trailers came out. Then the completely unrelated iTunes jukebox. Then the iPod. Then iPod on Windows with 3rd party jukebox software. Then iTunes on Windows. Then … the iTunes Music store .. click they already know how to handle huge bandwidth. Then a video iPod. Then TV programs in the store, then feature films. Then the AppleTV to play things from the store on your TV., and faster wifi appearing just in time to power it.

    And now some kind of play involving Safari everywhere, including on phones. What will be the next piece of the puzzle? It always seems obvious in retrospect, but is very rarely predicted correctly.

    Is it all just decided on the fly, or is there a master plan, plotted years in advance?