Apple, Motorola link up to bring music to the handset

Two of the U.S.’s most popular consumer device manufacturers announced an alliance this week that may firmly merge the worlds of digital music and wireless communications.

Apple and Motorola announced they are partnering to develop mobile software modeled on Apple’s iTunes platform, enabling Motorola’s wireless handsets as portable digital music players similar to Apple’s iPod. The first products from the partnership are expected to be available in the first half of next year.

Initially, the partnership will focus on creating products that share music through a "wired" connection, either through USB cable or Bluetooth, and neither company has discussed the possibility of over-the-air file downloads. Apple Vice President of Applications Eddy Cue said that Apple hasn’t dismissed the possibility, but in the short-term wireless networks aren’t able to support the majority of music downloads.

"The goal is to reach the mass market, not just the users of one high-end phone," Cue said. "We want to support this technology over a majority of devices and all users don’t have access to the fastest networks or the high-end devices."

Apple’s iTune’s music service allows customers to buy songs and albums over the Internet, which can be played over a variety of digital music devices. As the typical music file runs from 2 MB to 5 MB, downloading of music over a wireless 2.5G networks, while possible, would eat up airtime. Motorola and Apple are also proposing storage capacities far smaller than a typical digital music player or iPod, storing about 12 songs, or an album’s worth of music.

The agreement is not exclusive, but Motorola has committed to making iTunes the de facto music player on its next-generation devices. Apple meanwhile is gaining access to the millions of Motorola handset users in the world, who far outnumber the ranks of its iPod customers. Motorola would also stand to benefit immensely by its new access to the largest repository of legal digital music content in the world. Apple recently announced it had crossed the 100th million song mark on downloads over iTunes, and Apple claims to have a 70% global market share of legal digital music.