Want free songs? Get AMPed

SINGAPORE, our iTunes moment may have arrived.

TNP PICTURE: MOHD ISHAK

We finally have SingTel's AMPed service.

It joins other music-on-your-mobile services like Nokia's Comes With Music and Sony Ericsson's PlayNow Plus.

But it is arguably the most promising replacement for a full-featured iTunes store that seems unlikely to reach our shores anytime soon.

Like PlayNow Plus and Comes With Music, AMPed has the very attractive proposition of letting users download songs for free.

But it holds only 500,000 songs, compared to Comes With Music (4 million) and PlayNow Plus (3.5 million).

You can access AMPed on your phone or on the web, as long as you are on one of SingTel's three 3G Flexi plans, or you've signed up for their $9.90 BroadBand on Mobile service on top of your existing plan.

You can download as many songs as you want. But SingTel allows you to permanently keep only 15 songs each month. The rest will automatically be made inactive. If you don't use all 15 credits, they will be rolled over to the next month.

A point to note here: The music is not in MP3 format, but in copy-protected Windows Media Audio format. It means you can play these songs only on a Windows media player.

Interactive space

Getting started with AMPed is a slight hassle.

Since it's meant as an interactive space for music fans, it's essential that you login from a computer and create your profile.

Once you've done that, you're all ready to browse music on your AMPed-ready phone.

The AMPed application, which takes just a few seconds to load, brings you a homepage with highlights of the day's top downloads and featured artists.

Downloading is a breeze and, at SingTel's 3G speeds, not too much of a hassle. Songs can be browsed by recommendations, artist, albums, genres and shared playlists. When you've made your selection, the song downloads in the background, while you continue to browse the store.

As part of its interactivity, SingTel allows users to keep and update profile pages, Facebook-style, with your current mood.

But at this stage, the interactive functions are mostly confined to the web portal. You can't create, edit and share playlists on your phone.

Another gripe is that, unlike iTunes, you can't download a whole album in one click. Songs must be downloaded individually, which can be frustrating.

But clearly, AMPed is not just a music download service. It integrates interactivity with music news and, as 2,000 lucky fans experienced last month with pop sensation Lady Gaga, opportunities to meet up with their favourite artistes.

I was particularly impressed with how the service responded to Michael Jackson's death.

They created a tribute playlist with old favourites like Ben, I Want You Back and I'll Be There - all ready to be downloaded into phones.

But this is also where AMPed showed its limitations.

Where was Thriller? Billie Jean? Or the rest of Jackson's later hits?

SingTel currently has only one music partner, Universal Music Group, which doesn't own the rights to Jackson's later works, which are on Sony's Epic Records.

With AMPed, there are no additional data charges for either browsing the store or downloading songs on the phone, unlike Nokia's and Sony Ericsson's services.

While AMPed is currently available to 11 handsets from Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung, the telco is working to get the service as an application to more brands and models.

Enjoying Nokia's Comes With Music plan essentially means upgrading to a Nokia phone every year. Even then, only certain models come packed with the service. PlayNow Plus comes only with the W705 phone.

Once SingTel gets its music partnerships in place and the service is extended to more phones, who needs iTunes?

Tiny S'pore-made MP3 player that's easy on the wallet

ON A tight budget, not brand conscious but still want music on the go?

A home-grown company has come up with what it is pitching as a cheap alternative to Apple's tiniest digital-music player, the iPod Shuffle.

Barely the size of a thumb, the Kube (right) measures 23mm by 23mm and weighs 18g.

The company behind the player, Blue Tree Electronics, wants to make MP3 players affordable for everyone by pricing the Kube at only $34.90.

It is also selling it at 7-Eleven stores so as to reach out to a wider clientele.

Despite its light weight, the player can pack in six hours of performance, with just an hour of charging needed, said Blue Tree.

Despite launching the product at all 450 7-Eleven stores, Blue Tree insisted "we are no Creative", referring to one of the most successful companies in Singapore, Creative Technologies, well known for its line of MP3 players.

The company, set up by a group of long-time friends in 2004, initially went into designing electronic products for other companies.

Last year, the group decided to make and market its own MP3 player.

Ms Goh DjongDjong, Blue Tree's sales manager, said: "We felt the time was right. Three years ago, everyone just wanted the iPod, which was deemed cool.

"Now, people are probably more used to it and, maybe, are looking for cheaper alternatives."

She also pointed out how the iPod Shuffle, with its basic functions, is much pricier.

Ms Goh said: "People love to buy the Shuffle because it's by Apple, but the price the outdated Shuffle still costs $79 just isn't there."

Blue Tree is targeting children aged 10 to 16 and "young working adults and aunties who are watching their spending".

On the choice of 7-Eleven stores as sales outlets, Ms Goh said: "We could have gone the conventional route and sold it at places like Harvey Norman, but we didn't see the point of fighting for attention beside giants.

"It's a trial for now...but we have elements in place, good audio quality, good value for money, and good looks."

All You Want is Music