As Bla1ze shared last week, RIM has finally made the BlackBerry Music Store available to all customers via App World. Well, that is, customers in Australia and Canada. Those of us in the US, UK, and other countries across the globe don’t have quite the same experience. You see, RIM has been flirting with a pair of music services, so there’s a difference in experience between them. That can create confusion — and it gets compounded when combined with the PlayBook. Here’s a quick rundown of the issues and what we can expect from them.
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After a successful beta testing stage, it’s time for BBM Music to shine. Today RIM announced that their music download and sharing service is available to all BlackBerry users. We first heard about BBM Music in late August, and it sounded like a new twist on smartphone music. In fact, I think it brings back an element of music that went missing when it moved to a primarily digital format. For more on this, you can read my guest post on The Telecom Blog. For a rehash of what you’ll get with BBM Music, read on.
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It took about a week to go from rumor to reality. Late last week we heard the first strong rumblings of RIM’s music offering, BBM Music. On Monday I laid out the gist, and decided that RIM needed an expert marketing plan to sell this. It sounded like a good idea, but it runs counter to the offers we’re used to seeing. That is, even though most people don’t take advantage of unlimited music plans, they love the idea of having access to unlimited music. How, then, does RIM sell a service that allows users access to only 50 songs? We’re about to find out. They officially announced the service this week and have already started a closed beta. Here’s what you can expect.
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We’ve seen RIM fall behind the competition before, but this time they couldn’t let it happen. Their biggest smartphone competitors, Android and iPhone, all have music services that now have unique functionality on the smartphone platform. While the iPhone has always had iTunes, Apple recently added a storage locker service, allowing users to access songs from the cloud. Google rolled out a similar project earlier in the year, Google Music, which allows users to upload their entire music libraries to the cloud, with access from anywhere there is a cellular or WiFi signal. It stood to reason that RIM would unveil a similar service, since its mission is to catch up to, and then exceed, the current smartphone leaders. Late last week we got the first details of their effort, BBM Music, and with the weekend I’ve digested what it means for the platform.
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The new trend in smartphones appears to be streaming music service. This goes beyond the traditional ones, such as Pandora and Slacker. Instead, the trend involves streaming music from your own music library. Amazon started by offering its MP3 upload service, and Google followed with Google Music. Apple, too, has a storage locker option for iPhone users. It’s absolutely certain that RIM will create its own service, or acquire another one. In the meantime, BlackBerry users who want to stream their own music libraries can check out Cloud Player to get a little taste of the action.
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Prior to a few months ago, if you wanted to upload your music to the cloud you had precious few options. With the Dropbox app you could stream MP3 files from the cloud, but I found the interface clunky and ultimately unusable. Then came Amazon with its cloud music service, adn many followed in kind. Google has Google Music, which allows you to upload your entire music library and stream it through the cloud to your Android device (or any PC where you have installed Google Music). Apple is debuting iCloud, which is a similar service. Where does this leave the BlackBerry. In the wind, it would seem. But perhaps not for long. According to a tip sent to BlackBerry Sync, we could see RIM release an interesting music service sometime soon.
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For the past few years I’ve searched for the perfect music solution on my BlackBerry. Of course, I could just get a big SD card and load my own music onto it. But there’s something about a cellular connection that, to me, begs for discovery. I want to take full advantage of this unlimited data plan, and so I want to stream music I might not listen to otherwise. One prominent streaming option has been Slacker. While I’m a faithful Pandora user, I’ve always found Slacker to be a perfectly fine competitor. They might have swayed my loyalties with their latest offer, which includes unlimited on-demand streaming. That is, I can listen to songs whenever my heart desires.
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It wasn’t too long ago that I first heard over OverDrive, a service that allows you to borrow electronic materials from your local library. This is an idea that always made sense. We have these e-readers and digital devices, and while they’re not the same as physical books, they provide the same content. In the BBGeeks Store today I saw an app that made me giddy: the OverDrive Media Console. As you might expect, this allows you to take advantage of public library audiobooks on your BlackBerry.
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If you’ve been waiting for RIM to release its own iTunes-like music store, today you’ll be satisfied. They have released an Amazon MP3 store app in the Test Center, which will open up Amazon’s 14 million tracks for your browsing, listening, and downloading needs. It’s the same way that Android has combatted the seamless iTunes integration on the iPhone. And, best of all, Amazon has far looser DRM restrictions than iTunes, so you’ll be able to do a bit more with the music you download on your BlackBerry.
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Pretty soon this kind of service will be available on a much wider basis. But for now it’s available just to Verizon FiOS customers who own certain handsets. Thankfully, one of them is the BlackBerry Storm 2. On-demand video has been all the craze in cable TV lately, and now it’s on your BlackBerry smartphone. Verizon has released its FiOS on Demand app, and it allows you to buy or rent moves from its Flex View library. This isn’t a perfect offering for many reasons, and I can understand why many FiOS customers won’t be interested in this. But it’s certainly a sign of what’s to come.
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