Katie MarsalApple chief executive, Steve Jobs, has reportedly turned down requests from Sirius Satellite Radio to add satellite radio capabilities to iPods.
Karmazin reportedly told a conference in New York that Steve Jobs currently did not believe iPod users needed anything other than the ability to download thousands of songs. Still, he acknowledged that Apple might change its mind in the future, especially if satellite radio provided more interesting content.
"Whether you put satellite radio in a cell phone, video game or MP3 player this could be an enhancement," Karmazin said.
According to a J.P. Morgan's survey of more than 1,600 people, taken in December 2004, 35 percent said they had interest in subscribing to satellite radio. However, this figure is down from the 43 percent who expressed such an interest in a May 2004 poll, suggesting that Satellite Radio may have already reached its peak.
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12 Comments
How much would it cost for apple to launch its own satellite or license the bandwidth on another satellite. If apple wanted to do this it could. Apple gets very little from the deal and the sat radio guys get the ipod base.
i think this is good. i mean the whole point of an ipod is to be your own DJ. If anything, the whole podacasting thing, while it could move to live broadcast over satellilte radio, is very good PR for apple, and a lot of people do it. anyways, i'm toally against radio in general because i dont like other people making my music choices and all the talk shows suck a lot. for people obsessed with radio, they can jsut get one of those MyFi things or whatever Elton John carries around looking like a big tool.
It would be far better for apple to go the other way. License iPod & iTunesMS compatiblity into Sirius and XM handhelds. That way they don't spend a bunch of money trying to sell iPods with Sirius radio, or spliting the model up even more.
Apple doesn't make the Moto phone, Moto makes the phone and licenses with Apple to allow the ITMS to run on there.
All the portable satellite radios I have seen are significantly bigger than the iPod and they are just radios. Imagine how big the iPod would have to be to incorporate both. There are also significant reception and power issues to be overcome. It may be something worth pursuing in a couple years but right now it would be ridiculous to try and cram all that into an iPod. No one wants to carry around an iBrick. If they should decide to include a radio I say stick with AM/FM along with HD compatibility for North America and DAB for Europe. There are plenty of MP3 players out there with AM/FM tuners built-in but how many support digital broadcasts? This would be far easier and cheaper to implement and give them yet another advantage over the competition.
I think Jobs made the right decision not to include Sirius (or any) digital radio. It would just add weight, size and cost (the cheapest portable device they offer is stil $99) to the iPod.
I could not find a coverage map on their site or any description of where the service is available. The iPod is sold internationally. Why should all non-US residents/Canadians pay for a feature they could never utilize.
Oh, and did I mention that Sirius charges pretty hefty fees? Maybe Apple should introduce a iTMS subscrition model Ã* la Napster-to-go after all?
Maybe Sirius could hop onto the add-on train. But thinking about it, there would be no added benefit compared to a plain Sirius handset. I don't know what file format they are using but I bet they don't let you record and keep any of their programming.