Google Will Offer Its Own Version of iTunes for Android Phones
by
on September 22, 2008,
Only yesterday in a post describing some of the best and worst parts of Apple App Store for and the distribution system Apple built for iPhone content and applications that can be used as lessons by Google for Android, I mentioned that one of the best parts is that iTunes offers a broad range of content where users can go shopping not only when they are determined to buy an application - but even when they look to buy a couple of songs. This approach ensures some impulse purchases both for music and for applications themselves with music often driving sales for applications and applications - for music.
I mentioned that it would be wise for Google to follow the same path and add further entertainment content to the promised Android marketplace. Since Google does not own enough content websites, I thought that the way to go would be by some content partnerships that could bring the content needed to the marketplace to give users more things to play with in the store. Today it already looks like this is exactly the way Google itself sees the future of the way consumers will interact with various types of content they will consume on their Android-powered devices.
We hear MG Siegler over at VentureBeat reporting today that over the weekend a G1 phone appeared in a bar in San Francisco with a special surprise - it was running a music and video store application by Amazon on it.
This application (that I believe will be a default one for the devices) is definitely intended to make Android-powered phones better comparable to Apple iPhone when it comes to music and video content. At that if Amazon’s application allows users to buy and download video in addition to music content only the way iTunes now works on iPhone, this will be a significant additional competitive edge for Google’s mobile platform.
It is most likely that the mobile Amazon application running on Android will combine two of Amazon’s services - AmazonMP3 and Video On Demand. This combination will be sure to provide plenty of content to user of Android-powered device - and plenty of reasons to visit the marketplace more often than if it only featured a range of Google’s and third-party applications.
Image courtesy Mark Rizzn Hopkins
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Svetlana Gladkova
Opensource 
Michael Fidler 
how does buying music on a phone (from the amazon store) equate to google offering “its own version of iTunes?”
@Karim: It’s called a metaphore - always easier to explain something with a familiar notion than trying to explain sth new in many new words - this is why we constantly have Digg killers launched, for example - bloggers like to make it clear for the readers with comkparisons those will be easy to grasp instantly.
With only a few hours until the official launch of the G1 phone, its pretty exciting to see what surprises they will be announced at the New York press conference.
http://www.g1tube.com will have all the latest news, info & videos from the press conference as and when they happen.
though that could be misleading too, since iTunes lets you sync your purchases to your PC, as well as multiple mobile devices… hmmm…
thanks, i see your point — it wasn’t clear to me that you were going for a metaphor in the headline. i probably wouldn’t have misunderstood if you had said, “Google Will Offer *iTunes-Like* Store for Android.”
how about “Google Will Allow Purchasing Music on Android Phones”? too dull?
@Karim: If everyone explained the meaning of the posts in their titles, it would have been too boring, unfortunately. I see your point but unfortunately I don’t want to have all the titles of all the blog posts to look like identical twins.