AUSTIN, Texas -- Adding to the heat in on-demand music on the cellphone, the MOG music service showed off its upcoming mobile apps for both Android and iPhone. The apps will allow subscribers to access all 7 million-plus tracks on the service and save not only playlists, but individual songs and albums onto their phones -- as much music as the devices' memory will allow. It's set to launch in the second quarter of this year.
The mobile version of MOG mirrors the web-based version, which offers unlimited music for $5 a month. The mobile version will cost $10 a month, and will let you access your cloud-based MOG library, all the other tracks on the service and MOG radio. Crucially, any song or album on the service can be downloaded to the phone to save the battery power consumed by Wi-Fi or cellular music streaming, and to allow music to play back where there's no network connection (or when your cell connection is too slow for uninterrupted streaming).
Spotify's iPhone app (Europe only) lets you download playlists to the phone (albums or individual songs), and Rhapsody's app upgrade (as-yet-unreleased) can also store playlists on the phone. Napster has yet to release its app, although it has one in the works.
MOG wants to distinguish itself by allowing users to browse its entire catalog from their phones, downloading whatever they want over Wi-Fi or a cellular connection. Any song can be downloaded either as a 64-Kbps AAC-plus file (the same format that streams to the phone) or as a 320-Kbps, high-quality file with better sound quality and larger files.
The radio impressed us, too. Subscribers to MOG.com already enjoy artist radio with a slider that allows you to create an artist station consisting only of songs by that artist, mostly songs by related artists, or anywhere in between. The same feature will be available in the mobile apps, where subscribers can tap any song in a radio playlist to see the album and download songs from it.
The goal here is to convert people who don't pay for music into paying customers by offering them a deeper experience than they would get from free, ad-supported streams and easier than the hassle of downloading music from P2P and loading it onto an MP3 player.
"When we build MOG, every day we kind of said to ourselves, 'Music's already free," said MOG founder and CEO David Hyman. "What can we give somebody for $5 per month [for the web version] that just blows away free?"
This portable version, which costs $10 with increased licensing charges from the labels, is a necessary step in MOG's evolution.
"More than any other type of media, music has to be portable," said Hyman, adding that previous attempts to offer a portable music subscription (see Napster, Rhapsody, Virgin, Musicmatch, Yahoo, Virgin and others) required awkward digital rights management and a cable for transferring songs.
Smartphones such as the iPhone and Android obviate the need for DRM and cables, because the music comes from the cloud and lives on the phone or the web, depending on where the user accesses his or her account.
Neat extras include the ability on the Android version to search for artists using voice commands by clicking a microphone button and download your friends' playlists from MOG.com using either mobile app.
According to early hints from multiple sources at competing music-subscription services, MOG will not be alone in charging $10 for unlimited on-demand mobile music in the coming months, so differentiators such as MOG's individual song and album downloads, versatile artist radio stations, voice commands, high-sound-quality downloads and ability to download playlists from friends should dictate which one gains the most momentum with consumers.
One thing is already clear: Paying $10 for a web- and smartphone-based music service is far preferable to paying $15 per month for the Microsoft-DRMed mobile subscriptions of yore -- yet another way in which the iPhone has changed the world.
See Also:
- MOG Adds Lyrics, Interviews, Blog Tools
- MOG's $5 Monthly Music Service Highlights Spotify Obstacle
- Sneak Peek: Rhapsody's Upcoming iPhone App
- Rhapsody to Apple: 'Get Off of My Cloud'
- Spotify Set to Take America by Storm
- U.S. Exclusive: Hands-On with the Spotify iPhone App
- Apple Approves Spotify iPhone App; US Rollout Still On Hold
- Warner Won't Drop Spotify in Europe, But Could Shape U.S. Launch
- Note To Music Industry: Portability Is Key to Spotify Profits
