Another day, another movie and music store. This time, though, it’s for Android-based phones; today is Android Day, in case you forgot.
Right, so it looks like Amazon has struck a deal with Google to launch a mobile version of its online music and movie store for Android-based cellphones. That’s the hot rumor right now, at least. It seems—get this—that a G1 made the rounds at a San Francisco bar at the weekend (making the user Mr. Popular!), and on the device was the Amazon store. Presumably you’d be able to download MP3s from a desktop client, maybe even other the air, then load them onto your G1. Movies? Again, maybe you’d be able to download them onto your desktop, then load them onto your phone. It really is speculation of the highest order.
So to recap: there may or may not be an Amazon music and movie store for Android, the first phone of which officially debuts later today.
One side note to all this Android hysteria: if, at the end of the day, the G1 is a cellphone, how do you convince people in areas where T-Mobile is absolutely horrendous to switch over? In upstate New York (Dutchess County), you’re lucky if your T-Mo cellphone doesn’t drop out before actually completing a phone call; voice quality is similarly disappointing. The thing is, if you want to actually use your phone as a phone, you’re much better of using Verizon Wireless, because with VZW I can at least hear the person on the other end of the line. Are people now “cool” with terrible voice quality so long as they have mobile Internet access? Would you buy a TV because it has great built-in speakers but whose picture quality is lousy? Call me old school, but I expect to be able to hear the person on the other end of the line when talking on a phone.