Danny Gorog22 September 2008, 3:08 PM
It's an all-you-can-download music service, but if you're expecting DRM-free, high-quality downloads that you can keep, you'll be disappointed.
It seems that each week we get a new music offering from either a telco, ISP or phone vendor. A month back we got the revamped DRM-free Bigpond Music
offering, then Nokia
launched its "Comes with Music" promotion in the UK (soon to be in Australia), and now, an offering from Vodafone via a third party mobile application called MusicStation.
MusicStation is "exclusive" to Vodafone customers, as long as they've got one of eight different mobile phones that actually support the service. The service runs as an application and gives you unlimited access to over one million tracks, the ability to create playlists to share with friends and to receive music recommendations (as long as you keep paying for the service). It costs $2.75 per week or $143 per year, and Vodafone is offering a free trial for the first week. According to Vodafone PR you will need to opt-in to the service via SMS after the first week trial. If you decide to cancel MusicStation, the application remains on your phone but you lose access to all the music.
MusicStation subscriptions are also reasonably portable. Say, for instance, your phone gets stolen or you upgrade to a new phone, your MusicStation profile and all of your music can be transferred to the new phone (as long your new phone supports the application).
But like other DRM-wrapped subscription services, if you want to listen to your music on your computer, back it up to disc, or share it with others that don't subscribe to the MusicStation you're out of luck. Vodafone did tell me that Omnifone, the company behind MusicStation, will soon announce MusicStation Desktop Edition which will "provide a premium MusicStation experience with unlimited downloads synchronized across PC and mobile." But without an official announcement, Vodafone may or may not support this.
For all the hype surrounding MusicStation, the details available on the website are woefully brief; there are no terms and conditions, no track listings, nothing on the DRM the service uses and no discussion on the quality of the music. Vodafone does note, however, that "customers will only be able to download full length tracks on compatible handsets in 3G areas" - so if you can't get on to Vodafone 3G forget about using MusicStation.
Vodafone sent me a Nokia 6210 Navigator to trial MusicStation. As an iPhone user, it's now difficult to pick up a non-smart phone and not be shocked. However, that aside I do have some comments on the overall experience.
MusicStation is a third-party app and integration with the phone OS is limited (on the 6210 at least). For instance, if you've set the phone to silent, you'll get no sound from MusicStation until you turn the ringer back on.
Secondly, moving from one track to another requires that you use the '4' or '6' keys, a counter-intuitive UI given the central rocker. If you slide the phone closed while listening to a track, the music stops. To get it started again, you'll need to use the rocker to press play.
Unlike the iPod application on the iPhone which remembers what you were listening to, if you restart MusicStation you start back at the main menu. If a call comes through while you're listening to a track you'll need to press play again to restart the music - which begins from the start of the track.
Otherwise I found sound quality good, and music streamed over the Vodafone 3G network quickly.
But MusicStation is a good example of why this isn't the future for music or mobile phones. The level of integration between hardware, OS and application just isn't good enough - not with phones like the iPhone on the market. Should users really be forced to restart a song when the phone rings?
The concept of downloading music is a good one - and with adequate bandwidth and smart pricing could be a goer. But until the integration issues go away, and music is portable solutions like MusicStation are fun, but at best a gimmicky way to spend nearly $150 per year.
Vodafone is positioning MusicStation as an "exciting" new entrant to the digital music space, but the reality is somewhat different. While the word "download" is used five times in the brief three paragraph description, the service seems to be little more than a glorified subscription service - stop paying and your music vanishes. On a more positive note, if mobile music is your thing, and you're with Vodafone, the service offers better value then the $1.99 per song that Vodafone currently charge to download and "own" your own music.