Does anyone need a ‘music phone’ nowadays?
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Sony Ericsson did an excellent job of reawakening the Walkman brand a few years ago, with a range of stylish music phones and bundled services. Today, it unveiled the latest model: the Yendo. It’s the first ‘full touchscreen’ Walkman handset, as opposed to recent models like the W960i, which paired a touchscreen with a traditional physical keypad.
On the face of it, the Yendo is pretty nifty. It’s got a 2.6-inch touchscreen, preloaded Facebook and Twitter apps, and Sony Ericsson’s full range of music software – including TrackID, MediaGo and access to its PlayNow music and content store. Three years ago, this phone would have felt like The Future. Now, it feels a bit like the past.
Here’s why: The best music phones in 2010 aren’t sold as ‘music phones’. They’re just smartphones. Get an iPhone or an Android handset, and you can kit them out with dozens of music apps, including recognition (Shazam, SoundHound), streaming music (Spotify, we7, Pandora), apps and games based on individual artists, and music-making apps that run the gamut from silly to serious.
Sony Ericsson’s Yendo isn’t a smartphone in that sense – it runs Sony Ericsson’s own OS – so the only apps you’ll get are those on the company’s PlayNow portal. In essence, it’s being sold as a traditional ‘music phone’ where everything comes preloaded, when nowadays, the model is shifting towards more general smartphones that can be customised to suit their user’s lifestyle and interests.
To paraphrase Apple… Music? There are thousands of apps for that.
That’s what’s puzzling about the Yendo. It’s a nice-looking phone, but we wonder why Sony Ericsson didn’t slap the Walkman brand on a more cutting-edge Android handset. In fact, why not go a step further, and create a branded Walkman version of the Android Market app store with a focus on the best music apps available?
Google’s perfectly happy for handset firms to do this – in fact, just this week Vodafone announced plans to create its own Android store for smartphones, branded under its 360 moniker. An Android-based Walkman phone with a bunch of music apps preloaded and a store to find more could be a big hit.
The apps trend isn’t just posing questions for Sony Ericsson. Nokia’s Comes With Music was a hugely innovative service when it launched, yet it now faces competition from phone-app combinations. UK operator 3 sells a selection of smartphones with the Spotify app bundled, for example, offering an ‘unlimited music’ rival. In fact, any handset can be a ‘music phone’ with an app like Spotify on board.
Maybe there’s life in the idea of dedicated music handsets yet, if they offer discernible hardware benefits like better audio quality, and are backed up by the right marketing campaigns. And it’s safe to say that the Yendo will cost less than a top-spec iPhone or Android handset, so may find a fanbase among people who don’t want to shell out for a smartphone.
However, the fact remains that in 2010, if you really want to get the most music value out of your handset, you need a smartphone, not a ‘feature phone’ – whatever brand is attached to it. Walkman remains a powerful mark in the music world, but it may be time for it to be applied to some of Sony Ericsson’s top-of-the-range smartphones.
Tags: Sony Ericsson, walkman
