Palm Moves to Embrace Digital Music

Posted By: Ed Friday, August 10, 2001 7:15:28 AM

Palm has taken a step towards making its handhelds more digital music friendly. The have licensing both Liquid Audio's Secure Portable Player Platform (SP3) and the Liquid Store.

Liquid Audio's SP3 lets third-party hardware developers build digital music devices that will work with the full line of Palm handhelds. Shinei's Porteson MP3 player for the Palm m100 series is the first device to take advantage of Palm's SP3 integration with Liquid Audio. It is not yet known what other digital music peripherals will result from this.

Palm has also licensed a customized version of Liquid Audio's commerce solution, the Liquid Store, to create the Palm Music Connection. This new song download web page gives users immediate access to thousands of secure digital downloads from a wide variety of artists and genres.

Consumers can use Shinei's Porteson MP3 player and Liquid Player Plus software in conjunction with a m100 or m105 handheld to stream, download, purchase and playback CD-quality music files. Liquid Player Plus supports leading audio codecs and formats, so users can access a broad range of music on the Internet from one application. A streamlined user interface makes it easy for consumers to find, organize and export digital content and import music from personal CDs.

"This agreement with Liquid Audio provides a simple software solution for Palm m100 series handheld users who want to be a part of the digital music revolution," said Barry Cottle, chief Internet officer at Palm, Inc. "With Liquid Audio's software, SP3 platform and extensive music catalog, we're able to give our customers a complete music package to use with their Shinei's Porteson MP3 player."

"Our agreement with Palm, the leading manufacturer of handheld computers, gives us an opportunity to introduce digital music to millions of consumers," said Gerry Kearby, CEO and co-founder of Liquid Audio, Inc. "Now Palm handheld users can carry and organize their lives, while enjoying their favorite music."

PIC: MP3 Player, 56K Modem Coming for m100 Series
PIC: Add-ons Forum

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Stores data

rcockx @ 8/10/2001 9:03:45 AM #

This sounds pretty good to me (if only they release it for the m5). It uses SD/MMC cards and it is metioned somewhere the unit can 'store Palm data' whatever that means though ;-) But of course I would much prefer a Palm with this stuff built-in. I'm afraid that such a sled might make the m5 a lot bulkier.

Why bother...

I.M. Anonymous @ 8/10/2001 9:30:07 AM #

Okay, I thought about doing something like this for my Handspring, using an MP3 player on my device. Since I've paid over $200 for my Platinum, do I really want to risk it while I'm jogging or walking around listening to music. You can get remanufactured MP3 players for under $100 and they generally allow you to add SmartMedia cards to up the memory. As valuable as my Handspring is to me, I'm not sure it's worth it to make it a music player.

And think about it... does the fact that a Pocket PC play music or videos really make it a Palm killer?

RE: Why bother...

wilco @ 8/10/2001 12:16:54 PM #

Depends. Listening while walking or driving (with a Palm) is silly or even hazardous. But it really is cool to be able to carry tunes that you can listen to while taking a rest from work at the office. The PDA reduces the need to lug along multiple devices. Besides, you can use it to transfer files from your home PC to your office PC (Warning: Putting Mp3s on your company's PC could get you fired!). Pocket PC can play MP3s out of the box, Palms (except CLIE7xx) requires add-on which brings the price of the Palms near or over Pocket PC prices. That could be a killer app for some. It could be what separates the men from the boys. Opps! Might spark a debate here. Still what's good for one could be trash to others. So ease-of-use of Palms, the huge available software, or the pocketability of Palms m50x/V could be the killer difference for others. Really it's subjective.
As for Palm's use of Liquid Audio, it's too early to tell. The big record companies are supporting different noncompatible formats and until it clears up, Mp3s will remain the format of choice. Besides do you want to use a format that limit the number of times you can upload/download a file (don't know if Liquid Audio had this limitation). PDA users change the content of their PDA often enough that the formats of RIAA is inappropriate. So for now, Fair Use of MP3s is still the way to go. And for MP3s you do not have to pay license fees to Liquid Audio (Hey, you paid for the music by buying CD). All these licensing will only jack up the cost of the players.

RE: Why bother...

I.M. Anonymous @ 8/10/2001 3:11:06 PM #

do you really want to jog while listening to music? ya gonna get run over by car, or worst you gonna miss your heart beat target.

(the point is, mister, listening music is not just while you jog, just like not everybody listen to music while jogging.)

RE: Why bother...

I.M. Anonymous @ 8/10/2001 3:45:11 PM #

Not he point is, if your car has auto control, even though you didn't ask for it when y ou bought the car and you never ever use, it's still there and doesn't do anything to hurt the vaule of the car. And someday while on a long deive, you just may want to try it out because it is there...You may even like it and find it useful for certian condiations.

Thus having a PDA which can also play MP3 does nothing to hurt it, just gives more options. And where there are more options, there are more choices, to try new things.

RE: Why bother...

I.M. Anonymous @ 8/24/2001 8:52:17 PM #

I'm really one of those who would rather not spend an extra dollar just to have my PDA play music...I have lots of alternatives as far as playing of MP3s are concerned.

Better to have the MP3 capbility as an option, then folks can decide whether to choose or leave it out.

Since there appears to be a substantial number of people out there who are buying the PPC becos of it's integrated multimedia capabilities, Palm should have similar models just to stay ahead of the game...

quit the newspeak

I.M. Anonymous @ 8/10/2001 4:22:52 PM #

There is nothing "secure" about these audio formats; they merely restrict fair use rights of users. That doesn't mean they are necessarily bad, but we should call them for what they are: "restrictive audio" or "limited playback audio", or "audio with usage restrictions".

RE: quit the newspeak

I.M. Anonymous @ 8/12/2001 12:54:14 AM #

Don't forget, you get to buy that music again for this format, and probably this palm.

Test

RoMontic @ 8/11/2001 8:13:07 AM #

How the player fit in the Palm?

Why?

I.M. Anonymous @ 8/14/2001 4:19:04 PM #

Why would you want to spend 200 dolars on some thing that will have expensive media (about $50.00 for 64mb) when you can buy a dedicated mp3 player for less. l have a rio volt for $169.00 that uses cd's. Also, it won't skip unless you drop it a couple of feet, which when you think about it so would your palm (because your palm would crash and burn). Just buy a dedicated mp3 player.