Cingular Launches Mobile Music Service

By Geoff Duncan
November 02, 2006

Cingular Music offers to put Napster, Yahoo Music, and XM Satellite Radio on your mobile phone - each for a monthly fee.

"Cingular Music is our answer to a fragmented marketplace that until now has not fully taken into account the user experience," says Jim Ryan, Cingular's VP of consumer data services, in a release. "Music has become such an integral part of our lives and many consumers want a simple and integrated mobile music experience that gives them access to all things music—including songs, videos, news, data and information. With Cingular Music, we are offering our customers one click access to their music, their way."

The entire Cingular Music offering comes together as a single application on user's handsets, enabling users to listen to music, shop for music, enjoy music videos, and stream music from sources like XM Satellite Radio or MobiRadio, depending on the handset. The Cingular Music application will also offer MusicID, a music recognition service which can identify a recorded song, compare it to a database of over 3 million songs, and provide the name of the track and the artist. (And, of course, Cingular will then be happy to sell you the track or, if available, a ringtone based on it.) Cingular Music will also let users access music and entertainment news, as well as run secondary applications like MobilCast and Hip Hop Official.

Five Cingular handsets will feature the dedicated Cingular Music menu—the new Cingular Sync by Samsung, the LG CU500, the Sony Ericsson W810i, the Sony Ericsson W300i, and the Cingular 3125.